


Invitation  Only

by Heizpilz



Series: The Affiliation Trilogy [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-10 14:45:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 48,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heizpilz/pseuds/Heizpilz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott gets summoned, Stiles tags along and Derek seems to be helping, for a change.<br/>Or: the one where Scott is an idiot savant, Stiles is the brains and Derek is playing his cards close to his chest.</p><p>And I just  made that sound a lot more light-hearted than it really is. I suck at summaries. And tagging. Not to mention titles.</p><p>Set somewhere in the middle of Season 3. Canon compliant up to that point.</p><p>This part can be read as a standalone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**1.**

The corridor is barely lit by the dawn light starting to appear in the grimy windows, but he’s never needed light to find his way around. The floor sports some office debris – a broken chair, cables, the odd gutted computer or printer – and puddles of water where the roof sprung a leak after the warehouse was abandoned. And then there are the pools of blood and the streaks on the walls, still just a dark pattern in the sparse light at the moment but only minutes away from turning a dramatic red.

All the blood is playing havoc with his senses. It’s overpowering, causing the urge to wolf out as a precaution and the ache to go hunting in equal measures. There’s enough of it to make it impossible to tell whom it belongs to, werewolf blood mingling liberally with human. The scent of the fight is still in the air, copious remains of fear and aggression. It’s making him edgy even though all the opponents withdrew over an hour ago.

He’s not quite sure why he’s even back here. The others have searched the building and found no trace of the kid. They think the other pack has either taken him or something much worse. Allison suggested bringing her father in on this, which will no doubt prove useless, since they’re not dealing with hunters but werewolves. All Chris Argent will come up with is ways to kill them. Derek has worked those out all by himself. But Scott went along with the idea because she’s _Allison_ and he still thinks the sun rises and sets with her, despite having broken up some time ago. Derek can’t understand that. All he ever wants to do to his exes is kill them – as slowly and painfully as possible. Except for Paige and it still cuts deep that she’s the only one he killed for real.

But maybe Scott just wants to delay the inevitable, which is having to tell Stiles’s father that he’s missing. It’s only been a couple of hours but the kid was here in the middle of a pack fight – against Derek’s better judgment that no one ever listens to anyway, least of all Stiles – so it’s different from coming home late from lacrosse practice or a movie. He doesn’t envy Scott the task of having to break the news to the sheriff. But apart from knowing Stiles best, Scott’s the alpha now and everything is his responsibility. That is one aspect that Derek doesn’t miss one bit.

He’s come here with a vague idea of picking up the kid’s scent somehow. That shouldn’t be too difficult since he’s around him all the time. No matter how much Derek disapproves, Stiles is always in the thick of things, of questionable use at the best of times and invariably frightened when the going gets tough but never, ever backing down, be it from an argument or a fight. Derek has learned to live with it. It’s alright as long as the attention is not directed at him. And more often than not there are some good ideas in all that chatter.

He thought that even if the other pack had carried Stiles away, there must be some traces of his scent left, but in all the blood and lingering smells of the fight, it’s difficult to tell anybody’s scent apart. Scott tried, of course, while Derek took a badly injured Isaac to safety. Then Scott turned up at the loft, too worried to think straight and feeling the need to check up on Isaac, who is still healing, slowly but inevitably. Derek didn’t mention that the same isn’t true for Stiles and that maybe a human warrants more worry than a werewolf in this situation.

He isn’t ordinarily given to prioritizing humans over the pack, but then again, Stiles _is_ pack. It’s a little unusual for humans to become members when they’re not born into it, although not unheard of. The Hales always had a number of humans among them and it was understood by everyone that they needed to be protected first because they were fragile. As a child he had taken it as a given, but after the fire, he and Laura decided they would never have another human with them. If they couldn’t even protect the werewolves in their pack, then humans were out of the question. Neither of them ever wanted to lose anyone again, which was one of the reasons they never formed another pack. It was just Laura and him after the fire, until it was suddenly just him. And when he tried to create his own pack, he lost two of them and the third one left him. No wonder his ideas of what pack is or should be have changed.

He stands at the end of the corridor and listens intently. There are faint traffic noises although the building is somewhat removed from any busy road and bordering on open land. In the distance a farm dog barks a few times before quieting down and somewhere in the building there is a steady drip of water, magnified to a loud splashing sound as he gradually heightens his perception to maximum. His sense of smell might be confused, but his hearing is just fine. Earlier, just after the fight, it was raining heavily on the corrugated roof and that must have made it difficult to hear anything beyond the downpour in the confusion and uncertainty of a strategic withdrawal of both parties. Or maybe Scott was too panicked to listen properly. Because as Derek stands here, he can hear a heartbeat, accelerated with fear, yet a little shallow, coming from somewhere to his left and higher up than he would expect.

He turns into the adjacent corridor. This one has seen less fighting, but there’s still blood everywhere because the other pack retreated this way. The light is getting better now as he follows the high speed pumping of a heart, wondering vaguely why it’s not coming from the floor. If Stiles can stand, why isn’t he moving? There isn’t a floor above this one, just the high roof, but as he gets closer, he can see an air vent at the height of his head and now he can smell sweat and fear over the blood.

Extending his claws to push his nails under the metal frame of the vent, he pulls it off the wall with a screech of metal on metal that hurts his ears. Stiles is looking at him with huge eyes, his face and hair smeared with blood and sweat and he doesn’t smell good. He smells of panic, but he also smells sick, seriously sick.

“You’re really a lot more trouble than you’re worth.”

Stiles just looks at him as if he has no idea where he is – or who Derek is.

“Do you want to get out of there before your father brings out the whole county to look for his son? Again?”

“My leg hurts,” Stiles says and it sounds strangely subdued.

“Then I suggest you come out so you can get it looked at.”

“I can’t move.”

Derek sighs. Really, he wasn’t kidding, this is definitely more trouble than it’s worth. He tries to get a grip on the kid’s shoulders that won’t rip his arms off in the process, but it's difficult to get his hands into the tight space between the body and the wall. How did he even get in there?

“Put your arms out. I swear if you don’t make an effort, I’ll just leave you in there.”

“Derek?” It appears that Stiles is only just recognizing him.

“No, the Abominable Snowman.”

The kid giggles and it’s not exactly endearing, more like exasperating. “See? I knew you had a sense of humor. And it’s just like mine. I said that to Matt once. At the police station. When Jackson was the Kanima and Matt asked me what supernatural being I was and I said the Abominable Snowman. And that it’s a seasonal thing. Snowman – seasonal – get it? I’m not, of course. The Abominable Snowman, that is, but you already know that, don’t you? But Matt didn’t. But I don’t think he believed me. I don’t think he liked me much. I didn’t like him either. No, definitely didn’t feel any fuzzy feelings with him. Did you?”

Derek just grunts in reply. He doesn’t feel like reminiscing about serial killers of days gone by. There have been altogether too many of them. At least Stiles is making an effort to free himself from his hiding place now, but his idea of helping is to stretch out his arms and put both of them around Derek’s neck. Derek sighs and moves back slowly, pulling the kid with him. He has a good mind to just let him drop onto the floor, but as his leg emerges, he can see a large gash, open and bleeding profusely, all the way from mid-thigh to his calf. ‘My leg hurts’ suddenly seems less of a whiny complaint and more of the understatement of the century.

And yet, unbelievably, Stiles is still talking about that day at the police station when they faced Matt and the Kanima. “And you saved the day, really. You always come through, don’t you? Just like today. I knew you would find me. Well, I didn’t _know_ know. I knew it in the sense that you would just think good riddance and that it saves you killing me yourself. I mean why would you care about me? I’m not a werewolf. I’m nothing. But I knew you'd come in the end.”

None of what he says makes any sense and he’s still hanging onto Derek’s neck, so his voice is much closer than it usually is, making it ten times as annoying. Not the voice itself actually, just the fact that it never stops. “If you don’t shut up, I’ll dump you here, I swear.”

He tries to set him down gently but he can’t stop Stiles’s legs from swinging down heavily as they come free of the vent. All he can do is keep him in the air so that they bang against his own legs instead of the floor. Stiles gives a long pained whimper that grates on Derek’s nerves. Almost immediately he can feel blood on his foot, blood that is running from Stiles’s leg much faster than is good for a human. And _still_ he doesn’t shut up. “Don’t be such a sourwolf. I know you’re not such a horrible person. You just like to make people think you are. It’s all part of your master plan. Naturally I’ve no idea what that plan might be because you wouldn’t trust me to water your plants – if you had any plants, that is – never mind trust me with your master plan. But I know it’s just a show, underneath you’re just a pussycat.”

Part of Derek is feeling homicidal by now. Unfortunately his usual recourse of threatening violence has never worked on the kid, who always just carries right on going through his obvious fear. The other part of him is getting quite desperate because Stiles can still die here today. He’s losing far too much blood and feels clammy with cold sweat and when Derek pushes him away a little, he can see how very pale he is, much paler than usual, almost grey. “Will you shut up! I’ll kill you myself if you don’t. Can you stand on your good leg?”

“You can’t fool me. I know you won’t hurt me. If you wanted to hurt me, you would have threatened to rip out my throat with your teeth. You always say that when you’re annoyed. This is nothing. You won’t do anything to me. Because underneath that dark exterior you’re actual nice. Here, I’ll prove it to you.” Stiles clings to him tighter, easily bridging the few inches Derek's just managed to put between them.

And then Derek can feel the kid’s lips on his own. His head jerks back instinctively, but all he manages to do is pull a clinging Stiles with him and part his lips a little for a warning growl. For a few seconds there’s a tongue in his mouth and he kind of returns the favor, before shoving him away violently on impulse. Everything in him wants this to stop. He doesn’t do this anymore. After what happened with Jennifer, he has given up on any of that. And Stiles is a teenager. And male. And this is neither the time nor the place. Not that he can imagine there ever being a time and place to do this with Stiles. He’s not even sure if Stiles knows what he’s doing, he _can’t_ know, otherwise he wouldn’t _dare_.

Stiles loses his grip on him and crashes against the wall which is no more than two feet away. His legs give out immediately and he pitches forwards and a little to the side and Derek catches him just as instinctively as he pushed him away. Stiles is pack and Derek can’t let him get hurt, no matter what stupid stunts he pulls. When he picks him up, the kid is unconscious. He would just throw him over his shoulder if he wasn’t injured but settles for one arm under his back and one arm under his knees to keep the leg elevated as much as possible under the circumstances. He races down the corridor and to his car in record time. First he needs to make sure that he survives, then he’ll kill him himself.

He doesn’t have anything to stop the bleeding, so he takes off his sweater to swaddle the wound. By the time they get to the hospital, there’s a substantial puddle on the floor by his passenger seat. He wonders how Stiles survived this long with a wound like that. He must have been wedged in the vent so tightly that the walls acted as a compress, otherwise he would have bled out ages ago. Derek tries to think about how annoying it will be to have to clean his car, but the thought can't quite swathe his worry.

In the ER he dumps Stiles onto one of the gurneys as a couple of nurses come running over, wheeling it into a cubicle and asking what happened.

“No idea. I found him like that. I think he got mugged.” It’s always good to start a cover story early and plant the idea that the gash may have been caused by a knife rather than a claw. There are way too many unexplained animal attacks in Beacon Hills.

He half expects Mrs. McCall to turn up and smooth things over, which she seems to do every time he’s here, but there’s no sign of her. She must have a rare day off. Instead there’s a young female doctor looking at Stiles’s leg and thankfully she seems to bring the bleeding under a semblance of control quite quickly.

“How long has he been like this?” She’s not looking at Derek, but he knows she’s talking to him.

“About twenty minutes. He was conscious and talking when I found him, but didn’t make much sense.”

She shoots him a surprised look, maybe at his calm demeanor or the fact that his information is short but to the point. She’s probably used to babbling, panicking relatives who can’t answer a simple yes-or-no question. “Do you know who he is?”

“He’s the sheriff’s son,” one of the nurses answers for him and somehow Derek isn’t surprised that she knows. It’s actually more surprising that the doctor doesn’t, given that Stiles is such a brassy and boisterous character, who’s been spending way too much time in this building over the last two years or so.

Then the curtain is drawn around the cubicle, leaving Derek to step back a little and stand against one of the walls to await the outcome. He pulls out his phone to call Scott. He has people on his speed dial now, which still feels strange to him. For so long there was only Laura and now there are suddenly all these people in his life, not just acquaintances but people he knows a lot better than he’s comfortable with most of the time.

“I found Stiles,” he says when Scott answers. “He’s at the hospital.”

There’s a pause of dread before Scott rallies himself to ask, “How bad is he?”

“You should come. And call his dad.”

“Oh God… I’ll be right there.”

Derek disconnects the call before Scott can ask a barrage of questions he can’t answer or one of the nurses can admonish him for using his phone in here. Five minutes later he can hear the sheriff’s voice asking for his son. Either the man was really close by when Scott called him or one of the nurses alerted him as soon as Stiles got here. It’s unfortunate for Derek, who prefers to have either Scott or preferably Stiles as a buffer when dealing with Stilinski senior. He listens to one of the nurses spouting the usual spiel of ‘we’re doing all we can, sir’ and melts out of the room before the man can spot him. On the way to his car, he runs into Scott, who is hurrying up the path, and comes to a reluctant stop in front of him.

“Where’s Stiles?”

“They’re working on him.”

“What happened?”

“How would I know?”

“Jesus, Derek, can’t you just give a straight answer for once? I just want to know what’s wrong with him.”

“Then go in and find out.” He leaves Scott standing there and walks on. He’s done everything he can. The rest is out of his hands.

In his car he takes a few minutes to think, while he watches Lydia and Allison rushing into the hospital without noticing him. There’s no reason why Stiles shouldn’t pull through now. Yes, he lost a lot of blood, but it’s nothing a transfusion and some rest can’t fix. The kid is young and surprisingly resilient for someone so lankily uncoordinated. Ordinarily Derek would have expected him to perish long ago in all the trouble he’s always getting himself into, especially with the recent additions of werewolves and darachs and kanimas. He has no doubt that there were other kinds of trouble even before that, and plenty of them.

As a rule, he doesn’t often think about his relationships with other people. They’re either defined by want or need. It doesn’t matter if other people like him, as long as they fall in with his plans, and he doesn’t have time to think about whether he likes them. What difference does it make? Pack is not about liking someone, it’s about strength and survival, otherwise his mother would have kicked Peter out long before the fire. He judges people by how useful they are for the group. Or sometimes by how they can cater to his needs. Maybe that is why he gets surprised by his own feelings sometimes, like he got overwhelmed with grief at the loss of Erica and Boyd.

Stiles is a nuisance and has been from day one. But he’s also much smarter than Scott and therefore more adaptable. He challenges Derek at every turn with that strange mixture of bravado and thinly disguised fear that hides his true courage. Of the two of them, Stiles is actually the braver because he doesn’t have his friend’s powers to fall back on. Derek decided long ago that things would have been much easier if Peter had bitten Stiles that night.

Derek’s not the most perceptive person in the world when it concerns something other than his instincts helping him to survive, but even he knows there’s been a recent shift in the relationships of the people around him. Scott is an alpha now, and although Derek doesn’t necessarily consider him _his_ alpha, he’s happy enough to help him and his pack out for the time being. Scott and Allison broke up, which means that she and her father live to their own agenda again, but with Isaac getting closer to the girl, the change might not be as drastic as it could be. The Argents have become reluctant allies, taking a pack that tries to keep Beacon Hills free of other creatures over what else might be out there. Better the devil you know. Derek tolerates them – barely – and no doubt they feel the same about him.

By default Isaac is advancing to be Scott’s second in command. Sometimes Derek can still feel a mild embarrassment coming from the beta when they meet, as if Isaac will always feel like a traitor for leaving him. Derek doesn’t blame him for it. He wanted Isaac to leave, encouraged it by his own actions, he just can’t quite forget what was said when he did.

So Isaac is living at the McCall house and Scott is wrapped up in werewolf business and getting a new girlfriend. Where does that leave Stiles? Is he content with the situation? Is he still chasing after Lydia, who is so obviously happy to be involved with Aiden and only remembers Stiles when she wants something or he’s bleeding to death? Have any of them noticed the changes in him in recent weeks? How could they not?

He isn’t quite sure what exactly those changes are, has never cared enough to find out. He just knows that Stiles is different. Not exactly quiet but his chatter has changed. It’s more self-deprecating than usual and at the same time more viciously sarcastic. He seems more wound up, practically bouncing off the walls but in a different way from before. Is Derek really the only one who noticed? Or do the others just know Stiles better, know what’s causing it, and are trying to help him through it by ignoring it? Or maybe they talk about it all the time when Derek isn’t around. How would he know? It’s not as if he takes an interest in that sort of thing.

But now he can’t help but wonder. Stiles kissed him. No matter how delirious he was, it wasn’t like Erica that time. She had been calculating, wanting to advance her position in the pack or maybe just get an itch scratched. Stiles was different, more innocent and heart-felt. Less skilled, too. Maybe Derek is the only one noticing a change in Stiles because the change is relating to him alone? But if Stiles had developed a crush on him, however unlikely that is, he would behave differently. Derek has seen him with Lydia, throwing himself at her without any regard to her reaction or that he’s making a fool of himself. He does none of that with Derek.

He must have been really delirious – or suicidal. So that will be the end of that. Stiles will probably be too embarrassed to ever mention it. Which is good because if it comes out, chances are that Derek will get the blame for it. As if he would ever touch such obvious jail bait, which Stiles would be even if he wasn’t under age, with his dad being the sheriff and all. Or maybe, if Derek is really lucky, Stiles won’t remember any of it. It seems a little unfair that he didn’t do anything wrong and yet has to think of contingencies as if it’s his fault, but it’s still the best case scenario. He has to get on with these people, even wants to get on with them sometimes.

What remains is the question of how he feels about it. Just for a second there he kissed back, although he will deny it to his dying day. He kissed Erica back as well, but that was different again. She was his beta and passionate and demanding. And female. Derek has never looked at another guy that way, let alone kissed one. He rarely enough meets a woman who tempts him – and after his track record with them, even less so nowadays – and certainly never a guy. He was neither disgusted nor horrified, simply surprised. His violent reaction was about having his personal space invaded and being unprepared. Stiles can hardly be considered a threat to him, so he let his guard down. Understandable because he was kind of in the middle of rescuing him at the time.

Derek has sworn off relationships, romantic or otherwise. What he told Jennifer in the beginning remains true. People close to him get hurt, sometimes because of him and sometimes just by being around him. But the opposite is also true, people close to him, relationships of any kind, tend to hurt him as well and he just doesn’t want to deal with that anymore. He’s not sure if he could, because the next time might just kill him. So he hasn’t looked closely at anybody in a while and kept to himself even in the midst of the new pack. But when Stiles kissed him, just for a split second Derek wanted… something, just _wanted,_ something more, something for himself, anything. He moves his fingers up to his lips, then drops them hurriedly. That’s just stupid, and dangerous.

He refuses to miss having another person around and even if he did, Stiles would never have entered his head if he hadn’t kissed him. He’ll go out tonight and find someone willing. It’s not that difficult with his looks and he’s left it way too long again. He’ll go to the next town over, like always, and when he comes back tomorrow morning, he’ll never think about this again.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

**2.**

Derek is coming down the spiral staircase from his after-workout shower when the door to the loft is pushed open and the pack piles in. He watches them in silence as they wander into his place as if it was their own. Out of all of them, it’s just Isaac who seems a little uncomfortable, despite being the only one who ever lived here or maybe because of it. Apparently, he still has issues about that.

Stiles hobbles a little on the crutch he’s been given until his leg is fully healed and Scott pulls out a chair for him solicitously. It will be a while before he gets over the fact that his friend almost died on his watch. Allison takes one of the chairs across from him, with Isaac perching on the arm. Before anybody can even utter a greeting, Cora walks in as if she’s part of the group. It’s coincidence, obviously, because she’s laden with grocery bags and just happens to arrive at the same time. Derek comes forward to take the bag precariously balanced on top of the three she’s holding.

“What are they doing here?” Her tone makes her disdain for the others very clear.

“Now, now, play nice, my dear," comes a voice from behind her. "They’re teenagers. They have no place of their own to have their parties.”

Derek glares at Peter, who has followed her in. It seems that everyone is treating his place at their own convenience today. He turns to deposit the bag on the large table by the window for now. A water bottle is sticking out at the top, so he helps himself to it. Then he turns around to look at Scott expectantly, raising an eyebrow in question.

“We need your help.” Scott always says ‘we’ when he means ’I’, a habit that shows he hasn’t been an alpha for long. He comes over and places a flat, oval stone in Derek’s hand. It is light brown in color, polished smooth and when he turns it over, there’s a rune carved into the middle. “I found this on my door step.”

Cora has dropped the remaining grocery bags next to the other one and glances at the stone, before giving Derek a meaningful look. Peter has made his way over as well and chuckles a little at the object. “It takes four of you to come over here to ask Derek what it means?”

“Of course not, we’re on our way to the mall,” Isaac grouses. He dislikes Peter intensely, but then again, he seems to dislike most people, with the exception of Allison and Scott and maybe one or two others. Derek doesn’t think any of the Hales count among them.

“Do you really not know what it means?” Cora eyes Scott scornfully. “How did you ever become an alpha?”

“Strength of character apparently,” Stiles grins from his seat, “Which would explain why he’s the only one in the room.” He looks meaningfully at her, then at Peter, who smiles back at him completely unperturbed.

Derek puts his hand on his sister’s arm as she steps forward to pounce on the kid. Then Stiles looks a little sheepishly at Derek and adds, “Except for Derek, of course. He’s got an excuse.”

Derek hasn’t seen Stiles since the hospital. All he got was a text message, saying _thank you,_ nothing else, and even that was superfluous in his opinion. The kid sits a little gingerly with both legs stretched out to prevent pulling on the stitches in his left one. It’s probably the first time Derek has seen him stationary, barring the time he was paralyzed. Being so inactive must be killing him. That kid is always in motion and even now his fingers are tapping nervously on the arm of his chair before he lowers his eyes under Derek’s gaze and starts twirling his crutch between his hands as if he’s trying to spark a fire on the wooden floor.

“What _does_ it mean?” Scott asks, undeterred.

“It’s an invitation to a parley,” Derek says.

All the teenagers turn to look at Stiles in surprise, while he shrugs. “I don’t want to gloat and tell you I told you so. But I believe I did, in fact, tell you so. Stilinski: one – pack: zero.” Despite the words being smug, the tone is strangely neutral as if he’s not really enjoying his victory.

Derek’s not particularly surprised. Stiles has a way of coming up with the right answers, quite often by throwing a multitude of theories at any given problem and ending up with the solution buried in there somewhere.

Scott gives his friend a thumbs up sign – irrespective of the fact that Stiles isn’t looking at him or anyone else – and turns back to Derek. “Who sent it?”

“The council.”

“The _werewolf_ council?” Stiles chortles as if it’s one of the funniest things he’s ever heard. “Is that like the council of Elrond? Everyone sits round a table and decides what to do with –“ He wiggles his hands next to his head and tries to make his voice sound spooky. “ – the _one stone_.”

Cora looks at her brother as if she’s asking his permission to set upon the kid now. She is very traditional and hates it when someone makes fun of their customs. Derek shakes his head without looking at her.

“The stone’s just the invitation. It was left on your doorstep because you’re not part of an established pack. If you were from a werewolf family like ours, it would have been given to you in person as a courtesy.”

“It’s a snub?”

“A test. They want to see if you even notice it and how you react. Not all werewolves take the old ways seriously. If you don’t notice it or ignore it, they know what to think of you. The council is a very old part of our society. You snub them in turn at your own risk.”

“Who are they? What do they do?”

“They’re the law makers. They adapt our code to keep up with the changes in society. They’re also mediators and the last authority for all of us.”

“And they want me to do what?”

“They want you at the next meeting. It’s on solstice. Meetings are always held on solstice.” For a moment he wonders if he should clarify when that is but decides to leave it. Nobody can possibly be _that_ stupid.

Scott is silent for a while. It’s only the end of April, so no immediate decision is necessary which probably suits him just fine. “What happens if I don’t go?”

“You can’t _not_ go!” Cora flares up. “That would be disrespectful.”

“Unless you have no respect for anything to do with werewolf society in the first place,” Stiles mutters, earning another glare from Cora.

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Derek tries to head off a major argument. “They’ll meet regardless and if there are decisions to be made about Beacon Hills, they’ll make them whether you’re there or not. You’ll want to have a say in it.”

“I’ll think about it,” Scott says. “I don’t need to r.s.v.p. or anything, do I?”

“ _Don’t_ think about it,” Derek says forcefully despite himself. “Just go. It’s not that far. I can show you where it is.”

“Someone wants to crash the paaar-ty,” Stiles sing-songs.

“Yeah, like Scott would ever take Derek,” Allison mutters to herself.

Derek ignores her condescending tone and shrugs. “I’ll be going anyway. The Hale family has a standing invitation.” It’s true even though the parleys are not held every year and he wasn’t sure if there would be one this time around. Now that he knows he wouldn’t miss it.

Scott nods again, looking slightly impressed. It’s amazing how he really doesn’t get the significance of most things, yet always comes out on top in the end by muddling through somehow.

Derek sighs. “They can assign Beacon Hills to another pack and then you’ll be in real trouble.”

“They can do that?” Scott is all wild-eyed consternation as if Beacon Hills has been his for generations.

“We can head them off,” Allison says hotly.

“And they will send another pack," Peter says in his deceptively mild voice. "And another. And another. I could go on but you get the picture.”

“I suppose I have no choice then,” Scott concedes.

“Woohoo, road trip,” Isaac says with mock enthusiasm before going back to his usual slightly morose demeanor. “Can we go now? We’ll be late for the movie.”

Scott nods and turns away from Derek with a murmured thanks. When Stiles starts to get up, he hurries over as if he needs to make sure that he doesn’t fall over.

Derek waits resignedly until everybody is up, debating whether he should just leave it for now. Stiles, he notices, shouldn’t need that much assistance any longer, but seems strangely weak still. Then he thinks he might as well discuss everything sooner rather than later and says evenly, ”You’ll need an emissary. You won’t be allowed to speak at the meeting. Only the council members and the emissaries are allowed to speak.”

Everybody stops, standing up now, but still roughly where they were before, Isaac next to Allison and Stiles leaning against the chair as if he needs to conserve his strength. Scott shrugs, as always not grasping the problem straight away. He might have an unerring moral compass, but he really isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. “You’ll be there, won’t you? You know all there’s to know. Why don’t you speak for me?”

Cora starts forward again, outraged, and Derek holds her back one more time, while Scott now at least takes the precaution of wariness. He should. Cora is just one wrong word away from attacking him, alpha or no.

“I’m not your lackey, Scott,” Derek says coldly. He tries to keep his temper in check because he knows that Scott is just ignorant. He didn’t mean to offend. After a deep breath he adds, “And anyway, emissaries…”

“…have to be human,” Stiles finishes what he was going to say.

As annoying as it is not to be able to finish his own sentence, it’s good to know that there’s someone in the group who has been paying attention. Scott looks first at Stiles, then back to Derek. “I’ll ask Deaton when he comes back. I trust him and he knows what he’s doing.”

Peter chuckles in that amused way he has when someone is being an idiot and he doesn’t feel it’s worth trying to enlighten them. Next to him, Cora hisses in annoyance and frustration. “Doesn’t this _kid_ know anything?”

Stiles comes to Scott’s defense without missing a beat. “Hey, didn’t you tell me you’re seventeen, Ms. Pot? May I introduce you to Mr. Kettle?”

Derek ignores all of them. “Deaton is and always will be the Hale’s emissary. He cannot be anybody else’s, ever.”

“Oh.” Scott’s face falls when his brilliant idea is shot down, but brightens quickly. “Allison then. She’ll be good at it.” He gives his ex-girlfriend one of those soppy looks that always set Derek’s teeth on edge. It raises the question how that generally goes down with the new girlfriend. Or Isaac, who is obviously staking a claim.

Peter laughs outright now and Cora picks up one of the grocery bags to stomp upstairs in angry frustration but then lingers at the bottom step anyway. It’s no surprise because just walking away would have been a wholly uncharacteristic show of restraint on her part.

Scott sighs. “Let me guess, hunters aren’t allowed either?”

“Unless you want a bloodbath, I wouldn’t recommend taking her within twenty miles of the parley.”

There’s a pause while the other teenagers seem to be waiting for Scott’s reaction, which is a long time coming. Derek isn’t sure if Scott is really thinking about the problem or just trying to stomach the fact that Allison won’t be accompanying him on this little excursion. He always seems calmer surrounded by his whole pack. How will he react when he finds out he can only take one other person?

“Scott,” Derek says calmly. This isn’t his problem and he doesn’t really want to get involved, but he’s beginning to realize that he might have no choice. “Who do you know who has a gift for talking?”

Scott frowns.

“A way with words?”

Scott looks at his friends for help, receiving nothing but baffled looks from Allison and Isaac.

“Never shuts up?”

And now Scott’s looking at Stiles as if he’s only just become aware that he’s in the room, then back at Derek uncertainly.

“He _did_ know what the stone meant,” Derek points out reasonably.

“He read that in some _manga_ ,” Allison blurts out in exasperation.

“It doesn’t matter if he reads from tealeaves or cloud signs or whatever, as long as he finds the answers you need. You should listen to him. He _is_ the clever one.”

Stiles, who has gone from looking at the floor to gaping at him for a moment, now grins mockingly. “Awww, you’re so sweet, Derek. Keep it up and I may have to kiss you again.”

After Cora has dropped the grocery bag and the loose apples have stopped rolling with an unnaturally loud rumble across the hardwood floor, the loft is very quiet. Heads move from Stiles to Derek and back as if they’re at a tennis match.

Peter turns pointedly to his nephew and raises an eyebrow with a smirk. “ _Again_?”

Derek determinedly refuses to feel awkward. He is surprised, that’s all. He expected Stiles not to remember anything or if he did, be too embarrassed to mention it. He didn’t consider a third option. Maybe he should have. This is Stiles after all - who is grinning broadly under Derek’s silent glare.

Cora finally recovers from her surprise. “You kissed him?”

“No,” Derek says calmly.

“Yeah, you did. You totally kissed back.” Stiles is still grinning at him and Derek can’t look away. He wants to be anywhere but here, preferably in the woods, burying Stiles’s corpse. Why did he ever think it a good idea to become involved with a bunch of teenagers? Ah yes, he didn’t, that decision was taken out of his hands by Peter.

“No.”

“Did too.”

What are they? Preschoolers? If he needed any proof that Stiles would be the last person he’d ever do anything of this nature with, this is it. He simply glares until the kid throws up his hands in a pacifying gesture, forgetting that one of them holds his crutch, which crashes to the floor.

“Fine. Have it your way. But I wasn’t so out of it, that I didn’t notice your tongue was in my mouth, dude.”

Scott and Isaac are grinning broadly now, while Allison looks vaguely disturbed. “And on that note, I think we should leave.” Scott picks up the crutch and pulls gently on Stiles’s arm until they’re out of the loft. All four of them are already talking all over each other in excited voices before the door is even shut.

“God, Derek, that’s disgusting,” Cora snarls, stomping up the stairs without bothering to pick up the groceries.

Peter looks terribly amused, but Derek doesn’t like the calculating glint in his eyes.

“I’m going for a run.”

In view of the fact that the teenagers are probably still in the building, he decides to make his way outside using the fire escape.

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

**3.**

Two weeks later Derek sees Stiles sitting on a bench at the bus stop outside the library, playing with his phone or texting someone or whatever kids do with their phones. He finds an empty parking space about half a block down the road and walks back slowly. If Stiles gets on the bus in the meantime, so be it. He’s not quite sure why he’s doing this anyway. Or what _this_ is.

Stiles looks up when Derek sits down next to him. “Hey, Derek. Don’t tell me you’re getting on the bus! Surely that’s against some sort of werewolf code. Rule number 34: do not board any vehicle you could outrun easily.” He grins manically as if there’s a private joke in there.

Derek’s not really looking at him, just watching the traffic. “Why don’t you tell me why _you’re_ taking the bus?”

“Uhm, because my doctor says I’m not allowed to drive yet? My dad’s at work and Scott’s out with Kira. Lydia and Aiden are at the pictures. Allison and Isaac are bowling… and I think I’m seeing a pattern here. Do you see a pattern here? I could go on, but it’ll probably only get more depressing from here on in. There’s Danny and Ethan as well…” He trails off and sighs dramatically.

Derek narrows his eyes when a pick-up truck slows down a little as it’s coming towards them but relaxes somewhat when he sees the driver is occupied with his radio. Still, he follows the truck with his eyes until it disappears around the corner. “You shouldn’t be out on your own.”

“Excuse me? I think I can manage to go to the library by myself. In broad daylight. On a busy road. In the middle of town. And did I mention that my dad’s the sheriff?” He sounds incredibly defensive.

“We don’t know if the other pack’s left for good. They could reappear at any time. And they won’t care who your father is.” Or another pack. This was the second time someone tried to muscle in on their territory since the alpha pack disbanded. Something needs to be done.

“I may not be a big, bad werewolf, but I’m not Little Red Riding Hood either.”

“I didn’t say you were. I’ll give you a ride home.”

Stiles huffs a mirthless laugh. “You know, normal people would say ‘ _would you like a ride home, Stiles_ ’ or ‘ _I’d be honored to drive you, Stiles_ ’. But not you. No, you just decide I should get in the car with you – which, by the way, is something my dad always warned me about since I was a toddler. Don’t get into cars with scary werewolves. Well, he said _strangers_ , but I’m sure that’s what he would have meant if he’d known about werewolves then. And I have to tell you, werewolves don’t come much scarier than you. So I’m sticking to that, because my dad always has my best interest at heart. And if you want me to do something, you could at least look at me.”

Derek gets up off the bench, moving his eyes away from watching their surroundings and looks down at Stiles. “Get up and get to the car. Now.” He may not have his alpha voice anymore but for a human his normal voice and a menacing glare will always do.

“Alright, alright, Jesus, don’t go all wolfy on me,” Stiles grumbles, gathering up his things and leaning heavily on his crutch when he stands up. “You don’t have to growl at me.”

As Derek walks beside him, he notices how frustratingly slow they’re moving. The kid doesn’t even make an effort to hurry. Maybe it’s a deliberate attempt to annoy him, but Derek doesn’t think so.

“Why aren’t you doing your physiotherapy?” His voice does nothing to disguise his annoyance. If there’s one thing he hates, it’s how humans have a tendency to let themselves go. No werewolf has that luxury. It would mean certain death.

“I _am_ doing my physiotherapy. Twice a week at the hospital… with a guy called Miguel.”

Derek casts a sideways glance to see if he’s serious and Stiles is suppressing a smirk in that ‘ _please don’t smash my head into anything_ ’ way that he has. When their eyes meet, he starts to grin outright. “I swear that’s his name.”

Not wanting to get sidetracked, Derek says evenly, “Then why are you still walking with a crutch?”

“Hello? I don’t know if you remember this, although I’m sure I mentioned it earlier, but I’m not actually a werewolf. I don’t heal from one minute to the next. No supernatural powers for Stiles.”

“It’s been six weeks.”

There is silence after that, which is a new one for Derek. He can’t remember ever being in a room with this kid and having blessed silence. Stiles just looks out the passenger side window for the remainder of the journey. When they get to his house, Derek is relieved to see that the sheriff’s cruiser is nowhere in sight. The less he has to do with the man, the better.

Stiles gets his stuff together and then makes his way laboriously around the front of the car to the driver’s side. “Is this the point where I give you a thank-you kiss?” he asks, apparently gearing up to do just that and somewhat perked up now, judging by his smirk.

The kid really can’t leave well enough alone. “If you want to lose your tongue. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at two. Be out here. I don’t want to deal with your father.”

Stiles loses his grin. “Pick me up for what?”

Derek just raises his eyebrows as if that should be obvious and drives off, leaving Stiles to stare after him until he disappears in the distance.

 

 

Having to explain to Cora why he needs the loft to himself for the afternoon has already put Derek in a bad mood. Her angry ‘ _why do you even care?’_ as she flounced out the door is still ringing in his ears. It’s not so much that he cares on a personal level but that something is obviously going wrong and he's either the only one who notices or the only one who realizes it's so bad it needs fixing. Or maybe he’s the only one who _can_ fix it.

His mood is not at all improved by the fact that Stiles isn’t waiting for him where he told him to wait _and_ the sheriff’s car is parked in the drive. He doesn’t linger because his argument with his sister has already made him slightly late. If Stiles wanted to be here, he would be here. He contemplates the window but that’s not such a good idea on a Sunday afternoon when the neighbors are washing their cars or mowing their lawns and there’s no real cause for stealth. So he walks up to the front door to ring the bell.

Stilinski answers the door and stares at him for a full thirty seconds before saying evenly, “Hale. What can I do for you?”

“Sheriff,” Derek answers in the same vein. “I’ve come to pick up Stiles.”

“Really? What for?”

“I’m helping him get his leg back to normal. Exercises, that sort of thing.”

The sheriff looks a lot less hostile all of a sudden and even somewhat contemplative. “Really? And you think you’ll be able to make him do those? How?”

“I have great powers off persuasion.” Derek refrains from wolfing out a little to make his point. He’s sure Stilinski wouldn’t appreciate it and it may prove detriment to his goal. He reckons the sheriff’s a man whose instinct will always be to batten down the hatches, to protect first and foremost, especially his only child.

Stiles comes hobbling out of the living room and grins at Derek. Then he turns to his father. “Don’t worry, Dad. Derek’s alright, remember?”

“Yeah. He was on the chessboard.”

“Exactly. He’s pink. Like Scott.”

“Son, just because you put people on the board doesn’t mean they’re alright.”

“The pink ones are. Well, except for Peter. No pretty color will ever make Peter alright.”

Derek has no idea what they’re talking about. Luckily Stiles has moved past his father while he was talking, so Derek just nods at the sheriff before returning to his car. He doesn’t exactly find Stilinski intimidating but the man can make a lot of trouble for him if he wants to. Or smooth things over if he stays on his good side. Stiles gets into the car after promising to remember that this is a school night and a lot of awkward maneuvering of his leg. Derek peels off as soon as he can.

“Where are we going?” Stiles asks. “Do you need some research done? We could have done that at my place. My dad knows now and he’s fine with it.”

“No.”

“Okay, no research. Let me guess… you need bait, right? I’m gonna be bait for one of your traps, am I right? What are you hunting? I have to inform you that I make really terrible bait. Like _epically_ bad, you know, with not being able to move properly and all. Unless you’re looking for dead bait. _That_ I could probably do. But my dad would really object to that. So would I. Please, don’t make me be the bait that gets killed.”

“No.”

“Oh good, I really appreciate that. So instead we’re doing… what?” There’s a pause and Derek knows exactly what’s coming in five… four… three… two… “Is this a _date_? Don’t tell me this is a date. Not that I don’t appreciate that I’m finally on a date and it’s… with you. Not that there’s anything wrong with you, obviously, but it’s just so unexpected. It was the kiss, right? I knew you liked it. You _so_ kissed me back. Admit it. But where are my flowers? A guy likes to be wooed a little and… and this is your place.”

Derek just shoots him a long-suffering look and gets out of the car. He doesn’t wait for Stiles, just makes his way upstairs. By the times the kid has followed him there, he’s already shed his jacket, sweater and shoes and had a good stretch in just his undershirt and jeans.

Stiles stays just inside the doorway and looks at the thin mat in the middle of the room. His expression is a blend of confusion and misery. “What is this?”

“Take your pants off and lie down.”

Stiles takes an actual pace back, but Derek’s there at lightening speed to close the door before he can slip back out. Stiles shies away from him and stares at the mat, seeming just one step removed from hyperventilating. His heart has accelerated to a frightened staccato. “I didn’t mean it,” he squeaks out. “I was delirious. I was just joking, I didn’t… I don’t want this.”

Derek shows him his teeth. “I know you don’t want it. But you only have yourself to blame.”

Stiles looks like he’s about to cry but his words are defiant. “Listen, if you want me to say I’m sorry, I will. I was just teasing you. I don’t want this. And I know you can do whatever you like with me with all that freaky strength that you have but I promise you, I won’t keep quiet afterwards, no matter what you threaten me with. And my dad knows that I’m here and he knows what you are now. He will hunt you down and kill you. Nobody will ever find your body.”

Derek is only just beginning to understand what Stiles is babbling on about and relishes the fact that for once he has the upper hand without even pushing the kid into the wall. “Really? He seemed pretty on board with the general idea.”

“Yes, _really_ ,” Stiles says, then does a double-take as Derek’s words filter through. “ _What_? What do you mean, he’s on board with this? How can he be on board with this? He’s not on board with this. No way, not ever. He’s my _dad_. He cannot possibly be on board with this.”

Derek is really enjoying this now. It seems like just reward for the kiss and all related remarks. “Stiles! Shut up! Take your pants off so I can have a look. And lie down on the mat.”

“A look? A look at what? There’s nothing to see. I mean, there’s obviously something to see but it’s private, you know, invitation only. And while I might have given the impression that I was inviting you to… to… look, I was joking. _Joking.”_

“If you don’t take them off right now, I’ll rip them off. And who knows what else I might accidentally rip off in the process.”

“Oh God.” Stiles moves a few steps back until he hits the wall, a little unsteady on his injured leg. He’s flailing all over the place, like he’s trying to find somewhere to hide where there’s only a bare wall, while his eyes are darting around for an escape. Derek walks over to the table and gets the tub of cream he got from Deaton. Then he stops by the mat and makes an inviting gesture, displaying his most evil smile.

Stiles is staring at him, his eyes glued to the tub in Derek’s hand, muttering, “I see you’ve thought of everything.” Then he takes a deep breath. “If you think for one second that I will willingly submit to this, you’re a raving lunatic. I said no. I meant no. You will have to beat me into submission and you will never get away with this. If my dad doesn’t get you, Scott will.”

Suddenly Derek is tired of this game. It was fun to see the kid squirm for a bit, but now all he feels is a strange uneasy disappointment. It’s not about Stiles’s rejection so much as it is about the fact that he thinks Derek capable of forcing anybody. That cuts deeper than he’s comfortable admitting. “I’m not going to hurt you. Well, maybe a little, but not in the way you think. I don’t want to have sex with you, Stiles. Why would I want that? We’re going to do some exercises on your leg and I’ll put some cream on your scar. My mother used to give it to the humans in the pack.”

Stiles gives a badly faked laugh while his relief and embarrassment propel him forward until he’s positioned himself on the mattress. His pants come off without further protest and barely any embarrassed giggling. Derek thinks that maybe without their little misunderstanding it would have been much harder to get him to submit to this without force. Now it must seem such a trifle to him, compared to what he feared a moment ago. Stiles is wearing purple boxers with cartoon characters on them, but Derek is more interested in the ugly red scar. It’s healed and that’s a relief because he was worried that there may be an infection or something. The kid still doesn’t smell quite right.

“I’d just like to go on record to point out that, as a teenager, I am entitled to think about sex in any given situation. It’s normal. Totally normal.”

Derek chooses to ignore that remark. He’s not talking about sex with him, ever.

In the end, ‘ _maybe a little_ ’ turns out to be a lot. Derek puts the leg through its full range of movement over and over again, causing obvious and abundantly vocalized pain. And if Stiles ends up in tears before Derek is satisfied with his progress, both of them pretend it’s not happening. He even has the kid home in time for dinner.

 

 

Derek meets Sheriff Stilinski at Deaton’s surgery at the end of May. He’s there to pick up some more cream and Deaton is his usual scathing self. Derek really can’t work out what his mother saw in the man. As much as he trusts her judgment in general, on this one point he isn’t so sure. The vet could supply a lot of answers if he chose to and yet he doesn’t. While Derek understands that he himself isn’t a particular favorite, Scott definitely is and still there’s not much help forthcoming. What is it with old people thinking the younger generation should be kept in the dark? That’s really quite disturbing when that dark contains the stuff that nightmares are made from.

Deaton can’t seem to do the tiniest thing for Derek without invoking his mother. It’s all ‘ _I’m only doing this because of your mother’_ and ‘ _this is because I promised your mother to look out for you_ ’. As if Derek ever asks any great favors of him in the first place or has received any. The cream’s not even for him and yet Deaton makes it sound like he has to dig up the ingredients with his bare hands and then slave away for hours to mix them together. If he would just part with the recipe, Derek could do it himself. Of course, it might help if he actually told the vet who or what he wants it for.

“How are you getting on with Stiles?” he asks when he has pocketed the tub and is already on his way out.

“Getting on with Stiles?”

It’s always difficult to tell Deaton feigning ignorance from when he’s genuine. He was an emissary for a long time and can therefore hide the tell-tale signs fairly well. Derek decides that there are easier ways to get answers and walks to the door, where he almost bumps into Stilinski coming in. It’s always a little strange to see him in his civilian clothes.

“Oh, hey,” the sheriff says, a little surprised and not as suspicious sounding as he normally is.

Derek nods at him cooly. “Sheriff.” He may know Stiles quite well, but he’s not really trying to extend his circle beyond its current members. Naturally he needs to take parents and friends into consideration when he deals with the pack, but that doesn’t mean he socializes with them.

He tries to just slip out the door, but Stilinski calls him back. “Hale. I've been meaning to thank you for what you’re doing for Stiles.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You must be doing _some_ thing. He’s walking without a crutch now. He’s almost back to normal.”

Derek knows how utterly untrue that statement is except in the most literal sense, but most parents don’t have much of an insight into their kids. He’s seen worse than Stilinski though, so he says, “Stiles is working hard. It’s really all down to him.”

“That maybe true but before you came along, he wasn’t really trying all that hard.”

Derek shrugs. He doesn’t think Stilinski would approve of his methods. A few well-placed threats work wonders on the kid.

“Just, thanks,” Stilinski says a little awkwardly.

There really isn’t much Derek can say to that so he just leaves, listening to the sheriff telling Deaton how odd ‘the Hale kid’ is and how hard it is to get used to him. Then Deaton informs him that Derek can still hear him. There’s a pause that almost radiates the ‘ _oops_ ’ Stilinski is feeling, before they start settling down to play chess. Derek realizes for the first time that they’re friends. In Beacon Hills six degrees of separation are definitely reduced to half of that, if not less.

With his suspicions raised, he makes his way to Beacon Hills High School instead of going home. On the whole, he thinks he’s spent altogether too much time here in the last couple of years but when most of the other werewolves in town are high-schoolers, it’s inevitable. The real question is why he’s never got into trouble for staking out a school at his age.

When school lets out, he sees Isaac and Allison first. They watch him for a moment, then Isaac raises his hand a little awkwardly before they drive off in Allison’s car. Derek can’t help but be amused that Chris Argent’s daughter is dating another werewolf. Poetic justice.

Then he sees Scott, who comes bounding over like the puppy he still sometimes is and probably always will be. “Hey, Derek, what’s up?”

Derek shrugs and just looks at him.

“Did you want something?” Scott tries again.

“Not from you.”

“Oh.” He seems almost hurt, but doesn’t slink off like he should. Now that he’s an alpha, he doesn’t have to, of course, but it’s still annoying that the tried and tested methods of fending people off no longer work.

After Derek has seen almost all the kids file past and realized he recognizes far too many of them, Stiles finally appears. Spotting Scott and Derek straight away, he stops at the top of the stairs until Scott gives him a little wave which seems to unfreeze him enough to come over.

“Who died?” are his first words.

“No one,” Scott says, then looks at Derek. “No one died, right?”

Derek shrugs.

“Okay, then who’s _going_ to die?”

Derek frowns. “Why do you want someone to die?”

“I don’t _want_ anyone to die. People just do. Like, all the time. In the end, it becomes routine, you know.” He shoulders his backpack a little higher and looks into the distance.

Scott gapes at him. “What’s with the negativity today?”

But Stiles has already recovered from whatever caused his outburst. “So what’s up? Did you just miss me too much and wanted to see my handsome face?”

Derek looks at Scott to see how he’s going to react, but he seems instantly mollified now that Stiles is back to normal. He turns back to Stiles. “What is Deaton teaching you?”

“Deaton?” Stiles and Scott ask in unison.

Derek has a terrible sense of foreboding. He looks at Scott. “You _are_ going to the parley, right?”

“Yeah, I think so. Deaton said I should.”

“And you’re taking Stiles as your emissary, right?”

“Yeah, I think so. You wanna come, right?” Scott asks his friend, who shrugs, then nods.

Derek turns to Stiles. “And you _are_ taking lessons from Deaton, so that you know what to expect and what to do, right?”

Stiles doesn’t even need to answer because Derek can read his expression well enough. “Hey, it’s just talking. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s talking. I’m the expert of all things wordy. I don’t need Deaton to teach me that. How hard can it be?”

Derek doesn’t know whom he wants to kill first, Scott for being so carefree and oblivious, Stiles for not being himself or Deaton for letting them run straight into trouble. “Are you two crazy?” he roars and a few stragglers turn sharply to look at the three of them before hurrying away. “Do you have any idea what’s going to happen if you’re not prepared? You will die. Both of you. And then Beacon Hills will be overrun with other packs and everyone else will die. There are rules. And you need to know those rules and you need to follow them. You two are idiots. And if Deaton hasn’t offered to teach Stiles, he’s not the friend he makes himself out to be.”

Scott looks crestfallen. “Alright. I’m off to work now anyway. I’ll ask him.”

“You do that. And don’t take no for an answer.” Strangely, Derek feels the least angry with Scott, who isn’t very smart at the best of times. He doesn’t mean any harm and relies altogether too much on his friends and his good luck. It’s Stiles Derek is most disappointed in. The kid is usually all for research and preparation. He hadn’t thought that Stiles needed to be told to prepare. That should have been blatantly obvious and with the way Stiles obsesses over things, he would have thought that he’d know more about parleys by now than any emissary ever could.

“Go with Scott. Get Deaton to tell you everything he knows. Listen. Learn. And if he refuses, tell me.”

He gets into his car before he can lose his temper completely and drives off. He wants to kill Deaton right now. Yes, there are many things emissaries are supposed to keep secret, but Stiles _is_ an emissary now, for all intents and purposes. What is the point of holding back?

When Derek healed Cora, a lot of his anger drained away with his alpha powers, but right now he feels positively homicidal. Stiles needs to be able to do this or they’re all doomed. Why didn’t he take an interest in this before? He’d assumed that Stiles would be Stiles and ask a dozen questions a minute. But Stiles hasn’t been himself for a while now, not on the inside where it counts. Derek needs him to be on top form. Otherwise Stiles and Scott will be completely out of their depths and Derek is gambling everything on these two. If they fail, his own plans will fold like a house of cards.

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

**4.**

Derek spends the next three and a half weeks watching Stiles. There’s no point trying to be covert, not with Scott around sensing Derek’s presence whether he can see him or not. The only reaction Stiles shows is to watch him back, staring at him across the distance but never stomping over to ask what he’s up to. It’s just one more thing that makes Derek uneasy. The old Stiles would have been in his face, hiding his fear under a barrage of angry and futile threats, like telling his father or getting a restraining order.

Another thing is the fact that Scott _isn’t_ always there. They’re at school together and after school if there’s lacrosse practice, but other than that, Stiles is mostly alone. He goes shopping and to the library or spends his days at home. Sometimes he leaves the front door wide open, making Derek wonder if it’s stupidity, forgetfulness or an invitation. Even if it's the latter, he’s not here to socialize, he’s here to make sure that Stiles is safe from any last minute attacks and that he spends enough time with Deaton to learn what he needs to know. At least Stiles is doing that. Every night, he drives to the vet surgery and stays for an hour or two.

Derek stopped doing exercises with Stiles when he started taking part in lacrosse practice again instead of sitting it out on the bench. That was the deal he made with him during that first afternoon, namely that he would leave Stiles alone once he got well enough to play. Derek thinks it was the best incentive he could have given him. Stiles hated the exercises. He bitched and moaned about abuse and harassment or sometimes he tried a different tack and got all teasing, pretending Derek just wanted an excuse to lay his hands on Stiles’s body. Luckily he stopped short of kissing him again.

When Stiles is safely ensconced at school or at home with his father, Derek runs in the woods. Twice now they’ve been caught off guard by another pack trying to muscle in on Beacon Hills. He’s not going to let that happen again, so he roams far afield, leaving his scent as a warning in the process. It would be better if Scott did this, but trying to impress the necessity on the teen would be futile. Apart from being just as obsessed with his new girlfriend as he was with the old one, he also has no interest in anything that doesn’t threaten the here and now. He always fails to see the bigger picture.

 

 

On the Wednesday before the summer solstice, Derek is following Stiles from the vet surgery. He’s hoping the kid will go home and that the sheriff will be there, so he can do one last run through the Beacon Hills Preserve before they leave on Friday. Then he will have to trust everything to Cora and… Peter. No wonder he’s so apprehensive about leaving. On the other hand, if they don’t get it right at the parley, all will be lost anyway.

Stiles’s jeep turns right when he should be going left, making Derek sigh. This may turn into a very long night. Five minutes later they reach the police station. Stiles parks cheerfully in the reserved area between three squad cars and a van, while Derek stops his car in the street because he couldn’t explain what he’s doing here if asked. ‘ _I’m following Stiles in case another pack tries to attack him_ ’ is hardly going to fly with the cops, probably not even with the sheriff, who by all accounts should be grateful, but nobody ever is.

Stiles comes trotting over to his car and knocks on the driver’s window when Derek just looks at him through the glass. He lowers the window and raises an eyebrow.

“My dad wants to see you.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see. Come on.” He walks towards the station but returns when Derek doesn’t make a move. “Hey, if you don’t go and see him, he’ll just turn up on your doorstep. Somehow I thought you'd like to avoid that. If you don’t go in, I’ll have to tell him where you live. So far I’ve refused because I’m a genuinely awesome person like that. But I can’t hold out forever. My dad has ways of torture that are worse than yours. So the choice’s yours, big guy.”

Stilinski probably wouldn’t have much trouble finding out where Derek lives anyway, with him being a cop and Derek no longer actively trying to avoid being found, but he still doesn’t like the idea that the sheriff could then turn up whenever he pleases. Stiles is walking backwards now, grinning at him and making beckoning hand gestures, leaving Derek to wonder if he’s finally decided to complain about being followed all the time. They’re in just the right place for that and Derek hasn’t forgotten that Stiles was instrumental in getting him arrested before, although hopefully they’re well past that kind of behavior by now.

Resigned, he locks his car and walks into the police station, trying to be prepared for anything. Stiles grabs his arm as soon as he’s through the door and pulls him towards Stilinski’s office, throwing a, “We’re just gonna see my dad for a moment,” over his shoulder at the desk sergeant.

When they enter his office, the sheriff hastily swipes something off his desk into the top drawer.

“Stiles, what… Ah, Hale, I wanted a word with you.”

Stiles lets go of Derek’s arm to walk around his father’s desk and tries to pull out the drawer in a quick movement. Stilinski slams it back shut before it opens more than an inch. “Wait outside.”

“Are you hiding food in there, Dad?” Stiles sounds genuinely upset, despite his exaggerated air of scolding an errant child. ”You promised me you would stop eating junk at work.” He’s still trying to pull the drawer open, hindered by his father keeping a hand against it.

“Stiles, wait outside,” Stilinski says in an exasperated tone.

“Why?”

“Because I want to talk without you interrupting all the time.”

“Derek has no secrets from me, do you, Derek?” There’s a broad smile and he even bats his eyelashes a few times, making his father frown.

Derek just stares at him. Is he serious?

Finally Stiles pulls a face. “Oops, I forgot. Everything’s top secret with you. But I promise I won’t say a word. I’ll just be real quiet, like a mouse, and won’t even squeak. Not that I ever squeak, no, sir. No squeaking sounds coming out of this manly guy. But I won’t make a sound of any kind. I’ll practically not be here at all. Just sitting quietly in that chair, not interfering in any way.”

They’re both looking at him now as if he’s lost his mind. Derek is sure that’s one promise he wouldn’t be able to keep on pain of death. When Stiles takes a deep breath to start again, he heads him off with a cold, “Stiles. Leave.”

The kid sighs and flounces out of the room. Derek watches him until he has shut the door and dropped into a sprawling position on the bench outside. He looks strange, kind of dejected, crossing his arms and staring at his outstretched feet. Derek turns back around when he senses the sheriff watching him.

“I have no idea how you just did that. And ordinarily I would ask you to teach me how to do that, but I have to admit that I’m a little concerned about it. This is the first time I’ve seen Stiles obey anyone and you’re spending an awful lot of time with him. You got him to do his exercises somehow which he steadfastly refused before that. Is there something I should know?”

Derek meets his gaze without flinching. “No.” Then, when the sheriff only narrows his eyes a little more, he elaborates. “Stiles is part of Scott’s pack. There’s a hierarchy.”

“He doesn’t obey Scott like that.”

“No, because they’re also friends. He obeys me precisely because he doesn’t know me that well. If he were more comfortable with me, he would stop. I’m trying to avoid that.”

It’s basically the truth – without mentioning how many times he’s pushed Stiles into doors and walls to get him to obey in the first place. And how he sometimes gets the impression that Stiles doesn’t really fear him all that much any longer. Derek is used to intimidating people to get what he wants. He doesn’t question it when it works.

The sheriff is still watching him silently. Derek’s attempt at alleviating paternal fears is apparently not as successful as expected, although he thinks he made a good case. What more is there to say? A lot, judging by the other man’s expression. “I mean your son no harm and I have no… unsavory intentions towards him.”

“Okay, that’s good because he asked me to let him go on a trip with you and Scott over the weekend.”

“He should be back on Sunday night, Monday morning at the latest.”

“That’s good, too, but I’m more concerned about the fact that he seems to blindly trust you to take him and Scott somewhere for the weekend without asking any questions about it.”

Derek shrugs. “It’s a pack thing. Trust is inherent.” Or it would be if they actually _were_ all one pack. “If it puts your mind at rest, Scott could probably best me in a fight if he wanted to.”

Stilinski looks dubious. “Seriously?”

“He is an alpha.”

“He doesn’t look it.”

Derek thinks he doesn’t act it most of the time either but doesn’t say anything. It’s not as if he himself did such a brilliant job when he was an alpha.

“What is this thing you’re supposed to go to?”

“I can’t really talk about that, but…” Stepping forward, he grabs a scrap of paper and a pen to write down a couple of lines. “This is where we’ll be staying.” He hands the sheriff the paper. “Don’t tell _any_ one. Not even Stiles.”

The sheriff’s eyes widen when he reads the note. Then he glares again. Derek takes a deep breath. “No harm will come to Stiles through me or from anyone else while I’m with him. You have my word.”

Basically, he just swore an oath that binds him to Stiles as much as any pack or family ever could. The other man doesn’t know that, of course, and for a while, there’s no reaction until he finally gets up and stretches out his hand. Derek shakes it.

“I’ll hold you to that.” Stilinski, in turn, is handing his son over into his care, if only for the weekend.

“I won’t let you down, sir.” Of course he won’t, he needs the kid for his plans and even if the promise he just made needs to be kept at all costs, those two objectives shouldn’t come into conflict.

With a nod, Derek turns and leaves the office. Stiles jumps up and darts around him like a puppy while they’re walking towards the door. “What did he want? What did he say? Is he mad at me? Am I grounded? I can still go on Friday, right?”

It’s almost like the old Stiles. Almost but not quite and Derek can’t help wondering why the sheriff never asked the _real_ question.

 

 

For the first leg of the journey on Friday, Stiles is driving. Derek consented to share the jeep with him and Scott, mainly to make it less likely that they’ll go anywhere without him. He tells them to drive towards Sacramento, then tries to catch up on his sleep, stretched out on the backseat. It proves difficult and he listens to the teens’ banter without much interest. Scott talks mainly about Kira. Judging by the frequency of the beeping sounds from his phone, he seems to be texting her furiously.

Stiles humors his friend good-naturedly, asking questions about the girlfriend and listening to the, quite frankly, mind-numbingly boring answers without interruption. Derek wonders how Scott can possibly miss his friend’s part resigned, part apprehensive undertones.

They stop at a roadside diner just one hour into the journey. Stiles insists that it’s tradition to eat in these places on road trips and buys himself a huge meal. Derek declines. The smell of dirty grease and burnt coffee makes him want to gag. Scott obliviously shovels food into his mouth while playing with his phone. Luckily there’s a decent coffee place next to the diner and the teens get some frothy concoction with extra shots of one thing or another. Derek asks for ordinary coffee but makes do with Americano.

He insists on driving after that and Stiles argues perfunctorily but acquiesces soon enough. Scott doesn’t seem to care, happily climbing into the back to continue his long-distance mating ritual. For a while, Stiles is weirdly quiet, but Derek can feel his heartbeat accelerating, not rapidly so, just very slowly and steadily. He looks at the kid, who’s fiddling off the lid of his coffee with hands clumsy with nerves. He has drunk maybe half of it and now sticks his finger into the cup, running it around the inside of the waxy container to scoop up the foam that's clinging there and then licking it off. For that, he opens his mouth wide so he can get the blob of foam in cleanly, closing his lips around the base of his finger and pulling it out very slowly, finishing with a quiet pop.

Derek has to avert his eyes because even though he’s seen him do it once or twice before, he has never _looked._ There’s something vaguely obscene about it, or not so vaguely, if Stiles was doing it on purpose. But he isn’t, it’s just that he likes the foam best and doesn’t want to waste any of it. Somehow, even though Derek keeps his eyes on the road after that, he can’t get the image out of his head, especially since every now and again there’s another quiet pop, which is not so quiet to Derek’s enhanced hearing. It’s disconcerting to say the least. He should have gone out one night this week to let off steam, but he was too wound up and because of that, he’s even more wound up now. And thinking like that about Stiles of all people is making him feel more than a little uneasy.

After another hour, he turns into a small country road and drives until they come to a fast flowing river. When he stops the car, he tries not to look at the scenic spot where he and his mother had a picnic the one and only time he went to a parley with her. All the times before, Laura had gone with her, but she had a school thing that day that she couldn’t miss and so his mother had taken him. Now he grits his teeth at the memory. No point in getting sentimental. It will only get worse from here on in.

“Let’s go.”

The others clamber out of the car and follow him down to the river, asking if they should bring their stuff.

“What stuff?”

“You know, rations, backpack, sleeping bag?”

Derek stares at them. Maybe Deaton wasn’t the only one who failed to prepare them adequately. “You think this is the meeting place?”

Scott looks at the wood in the distance and shrugs.

“This is _not_ the meeting place. This has, however, loud running water that will mask our voices.” Especially since they can see for miles in every direction. He knows he’s being paranoid. They could have had this conversation in the car. _Or not_. He grabs Scott’s phone in the middle of him texting and when Scott growls at him, he mimes throwing it into the river, which causes Scott to hold up his hands in a pacifying gesture. “Now, listen up and concentrate. We’re going into a hostile environment. Nobody, absolutely _nobody_ at the parley is your friend, no matter how nice they pretend to be. They want something from you, something you don’t want them to have. Your territory, your power, your submission. Trust only each other.”

The friends look at each other in alarm. “Oka-ay,” Stiles says finally. “Only trusting each other. Got it. And you, right?”

Derek hesitates for just a fraction. “Yeah,” he says flatly.

Stiles grins at him. “You really have to work on that inspiring confidence thingy. That was pitiful. Absolutely no confidence was inspired.”

Derek ignores him. “There’s also a strict rule against shifting. Under no circumstances, no matter the provocation, are you to shift. That includes fangs and claws. The place has guardians, powerful alphas who will tear you to bits as punishment, on the spot. Don’t do anything past flashing your eyes and light growling.”

“What if I get threatened?” Scott asks unhappily.

“Doesn’t matter. You’re only allowed to shift if someone attacks you and only once they touch you, not a second before that.” He shifts without warning and growls in Scott’s face.

The alpha jerks back, giving a growl of his own, with his eyes flashing red, fangs and claws extended.

Derek shifts back immediately. “And you’re dead. I never touched you, so you broke the rules.”

“But… I don’t know if I can control myself that well.”

“Try harder. The good news is that anybody doing what I just did would be dead before the fight even starts. But the guardians will kill you as well, if you shift in response. There are no exceptions.”

“Lovely,” Stiles comments in a low mutter. “I wonder who watches the watchers.”

Derek can appreciate the sentiment, but they don’t have time for this. “The other thing is that you have to assume that every word you say is being overheard. Werewolf senses everywhere, remember that. Do not talk about home, people you know or any comments on the people you meet or what you think about what’s going on. At all. Got it?”

Stiles groans. “Man, that really limits the conversation, don’t you think? What _are_ we going to talk about?”

“I would suggest not talking at all but that’s probably futile in your case.”

“Hey, we can’t all be the dark, handsome, brooding type. Because that would make for really dull parties.”

Scott chuckles and Stiles frowns. “What did I say?”

“You called him handsome. With all the kissing, I’m starting to wonder what’s going on with you two.”

“Oh, I didn’t…”

“Shut up! Both of you. If you don’t start taking this seriously, you’re gonna get us all killed.”

“So that’s a real possibility then?” Stiles’s heart rate increases further. It’s a persistently fast thrumming that doesn’t sound good.

“It happens,” Derek says. “There’s a bunch of werewolves together. We’re not known for our peaceful disposition.”

“Oh man.” Stiles turns away and starts flailing his arms about. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck…”

Immediately, Scott rushes over to him, catches his arms and looks into his face with an encouraging smile. “It’s okay. I’ll be there. Derek’s gonna be there. We’ll look after you.”

“You don’t understand. _You’re_ not allowed to speak. _I’m_ supposed to do that and I’m gonna say something stupid or insulting and I’m gonna get us all _killed_. Who’s stupid idea was this? I can’t _do_ this.”

Derek walks over to him and puts his hand on his shoulder from behind. “Breathe, Stiles. I suggested you because I know you can do this. You’ll be fine.”

Stiles takes a deep breath, but his heart rate barely calms. He turns his head to look at Derek unhappily and for the first time Derek wonders if perhaps he really did make a mistake. This could all go horribly wrong.

 

 

For the remainder of the journey Derek tries not to get sidetracked. In his mind, he’s been over his plan so many times, it seems that he must have covered all possible variations by now. It’s not that difficult, just requires a little finesse so that he’ll neither lose anything he wants to keep nor commit to something he wants to avoid. It should be easy. But his plans have a history of going wrong. There are always too many variables.

Still he’d rather go over it for the millionth time than think about Stiles, who’s hunched in the passenger seat, drumming his fingers irritatingly against the dashboard. As if that wasn’t bad enough, putting his hand on the kid’s shoulder by the river has reminded him of something that he’d forgotten until now. When Boyd… died and everyone was gathered round, horrified at the scene, or maybe horrified at Derek, there was a hand on his shoulder, placed there in silent support. At the time, he didn’t take much notice and afterwards he tried his hardest not to think about the incident, but now he remembers. It was Stiles, just being there, overcoming his own horror to try and help Derek in his.

He’s glad when they near their destination. About a mile away, he stops and tells the others to swap seats, much to their confusion.

“You’re the alpha, Scott. For this weekend, you don’t ask for things, you demand. You don’t hesitate or dither. Your decisions don’t matter as long as you make them confidently. And you do not ride in the back seat of cars, unless it’s a limousine. This hardly qualifies.”

“Hey!” comes the predictable objection from the backseat.

As he drives into the parking lot of the Hampden Inn in Lodi, both teens gape at the building.

“A hotel?”

“Of course, we’re staying at a hotel. What did you expect? Caves in the woods?”

“Kind of. Uhm… how can we afford this? I don’t have much money on me.”

“It’s paid for.”

Derek gets out of the car and scans his surroundings. The guardians are easy to spot, practically surrounding the place, ready to stop anyone who’s not invited from getting as far as the front door. Officially the place is closed for refurbishment. The teens pile out of the car, Stiles carrying both backpacks and shaking his head when Scott makes a grab for his own. That one’s a really fast learner. Derek grabs his overnight bag.

Let the games begin.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

**5.**

The woman in reception comes out from behind the desk to greet them, stopping two strides in front of him as is the custom. “Derek Hale,” she says warmly. “I haven’t seen you in over a decade.”

Derek answers the brief red flash of her eyes with his own blue one. “Alpha Turner, I am pleased to see you’re still here.” He only recognizes her by her long, slightly crooked nose, she’s aged so much. When he was here last time, he was thirteen and convinced she was a witch.

“Where else would I be? I own the place. I take it you’re still in Beacon Hills?”

“Yes.”

“And do you have a new pack?”

As if she doesn’t know. “Part of the old one actually. Family. Peter and Cora.”

“Cora? I thought she died. This will be an interesting tale to listen to.”

Derek nods, gesturing to Scott and Stiles. “This is Alpha McCall and Emissary Stilinski.”

Her eyes flash briefly at Scott, who returns the favor, watching her as closely as she does him. “You created a true alpha, Derek, that’s remarkable.” Derek registers with interest and some dismay that she talks about Scott as if he isn’t even in the room, while looking right at him. Only, Scott isn’t really aware of the snub and probably too good-natured to care if he were. She also assumes that it was Derek who turned Scott, so she must know a lot more about his history than she lets on. Otherwise why would she think Derek _could_ turn anyone?

“It wasn’t me. That was Peter.”

“Really? You must tell me all about it later.”

Derek has no intention of doing that and she probably knows it. They’re not here to swap stories. “Do you have our keys?”

“Of course.” She walks back to the reception desk. “You’ll be pleased to hear that all the rooms are sound-proof now.” Putting two keys on the counter, she smiles apologetically. “Unfortunately there are rather more people attending than we anticipated. We only have two rooms left, but I’m sure the boys don’t mind sharing.”

 _Boys_? If he could, Derek would say something about her treatment of a fellow alpha, which can only be deliberate. It’s too much to hope that Scott’s paid enough attention to his earlier lecture to speak up for himself, but Derek doing it for him would be just as bad. He grabs the keys and says calmly, “Naturally, Alpha McCall won’t be sharing a room. But if you’re short of beds, I will share with the Emissary.”

Scott and Stiles are gaping at him, but it’s nothing compared to Alpha Turner’s scandalized look.

“I couldn’t ask that of you, Derek. You’re a Hale!”

And now his two companions are even more slack-jawed. He needs to get them out of view and fast. “Think nothing of it. I know you wouldn’t impose on me. My mother held you in high regard and I’m sure the reverse was true as well, so consider it a favor from the Hales. I’m just showing the manners my mother instilled in me.” While keeping up outward appearances, his smile does nothing to disguise the fact that he just reprimanded her for her own lack of manners.

To his surprise, she gives him the first genuine smile since they arrived, acknowledging with equanimity that he has won this round. He herds Scott and Stiles towards the stairs and up to their rooms. When they look like they want to say something, he glares and both of them take the hint. On the first floor, the first room he opens is the double, so he pushes Stiles inside.

“Say something. Loudly.” He closes the door again and stands with Scott in the corridor. When he can’t hear anything, he nods to Scott to do the same with his own room. It seems that the rooms really are sound-proof. He knew she wouldn’t tell such an easily refutable lie, but it’s always best not to rely on anybody’s word. He enters the double room to find Stiles grinning sheepishly.

“What are you doing?” Derek takes a quick look around the room and dumps his bag on the bed.

“You didn’t hear what I said, right?”

“No, she was telling the truth. Why? What did you say?”

Stiles blushes furiously. “Nothing. Well, obviously not nothing but nothing of any importance. Nothing that would concern you at all.” He goes to inspect the en suite bathroom, letting out an impressed, “Oh, ni-ice.”

Derek finds himself uncharacteristically curious what Stiles might have said to cause him such obvious embarrassment, but it goes clear out of his head when Scott comes bounding into the room.

“I’ve no reception on my phone.”

“It’s blocked.”

Stiles sticks his head out of the bathroom. “What?” he says in unison with his friend.

“No phones, no faxes, no computer access within the compound.”

“Oh man, that sucks. What will Kira think?”

“Never mind that. Your performance downstairs was pathetic. She was deliberately insulting you and you didn’t even blink. What did I tell you not fifteen minutes ago about how to behave? You’re an _alpha_. You have to behave like one or they’ll walk all over you.”

“But I don’t mind sharing with Stiles and I don’t care what they think of me.”

“But you will care when they think you’re too weak to hold Beacon Hills.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh.”

Stiles is rubbing his hair, making it stand up in different directions. Apparently, he hasn’t quite got used to the longer cut yet. “So sharing a room is an insult?”

“It’s disrespectful, unless the alpha brings his or her mate. Sharing rooms with your emissary isn’t done. Werewolves and humans don’t share here.”

“But you volunteered to share with me.”

“I was trying to save Scott’s face. But I can’t do it again. If I keep doing it, they’ll think he takes orders from a beta. That’s not good either.” Derek looks at Scott and knows that this will never work. It’s not in Scott’s nature to play these kind of games.

Stiles must have come to the same conclusion. “Can I speak for him?”

“Yes, of course, you’re his emissary.”

“Okay, I can do that. So, now what?” Then Stiles gets distracted by Scott, who’s chuckling at him now, his eyes full of mirth. “What?” Stiles is already grinning in anticipation of a joke.

“You two only have one bed.”

Derek moves up to him with sudden speed and, catching him by surprise, he manages to push him against the wall with a hard thump. “I will _not_ die here this weekend because you two think this is a school outing. Focus!”

Scott growls and pushes him off. “Alright, alright. What’s next?”

 

 

Dinner is a buffet in the dining room. There’s a long table against one wall, laden with food, mainly meat dishes, but there aren’t any other tables or chairs. The other three walls are lined with guardians, one for every two guest and the room is already busy when they arrive.

Both teens smile broadly at the sight of all the food, but Scott’s a little more careful now, sensing the other werewolves in the room. Stiles tells him to wait here and soon after comes back with two filled plates, handing one to Scott. Derek approves. It’s appropriate behavior for an alpha and his emissary, although his mother never treated Deaton like that. In fact, now that he thinks about it, she never took Deaton to any parleys, which means that all the vet could impart on Stiles was second-hand knowledge.

But so much has changed anyway that it’s debatable whether it matters. When Derek was here before, everything was much more relaxed. In those days the council was a way to meet up peacefully, strengthen ties and look for solutions for the community at large. Now the place is brimming with hostility. The alphas keep flashing their eyes to establish their status and everybody is watching each other with suspicion.

Stiles looks hungrily at his own plate, then offers it reluctantly to Derek.

“You eat it,” Derek says, strangely touched. It’s not as if the kid offered the last scrap of food to him. All he would have to do is go back to the table and get some more. But it’s the sentiment that counts. And he really needs to focus on matters other than Stiles and lose those lingering vestiges of protectiveness that looking out for him over the last few weeks has created. As he leaves to get his own food, he can hear the teens enthusing about how good it is.

Derek recognizes a few of the other werewolves. During all of his childhood his parents kept an open house. There were almost always guests staying with them, come to consult with his mother or simply to visit. After the fire, it took him a long time to realize that most other werewolves like to keep to their own packs. It was only because his mother was who she was that others sought her company.

At the table, he chooses his food slowly to kill some time but looks up when he can sense another man approaching him. Even in the old days, there was always the rule to keep out of touching range as a precaution for sensitive territorial feelings, but nowadays it’s less of a polite gesture and more of an essential requirement because it might well be needed to avoid a bloodbath.

As a precursor to initiating a conversation, the other man flashes his eyes and smiles. Derek does the same when he recognizes him as a long-standing friend of his mother’s. He hasn’t seen Warren Curnock for more than ten years, but if anything, he was their most frequent visitor in the old days, possibly because of his similar status.

“Derek. How are you, my boy?”

 “I’m very well, sir, how are you?”

“I would feel a lot better if you called me Warren. You’re all grown up now and I must say, your mother would be proud.”

Derek doubts that very much. He got her killed after all, together with the rest of his family and he hasn’t exactly achieved anything since then. But he acquiesces with a nod, keeping an eye on Scott and Stiles, who are tearing through their food while watching everyone around them cautiously. So far, so good.

“I don’t have to tell you how sorry I was to hear about your mother and the others. Did you manage to avenge them?”

Derek would prefer to not ever talk about this again, but realizes that he must and that this will probably not be the only time this weekend. “All the parties involved are dead.”

“Good, good. Then all is as it should be.”

Warren puts his hand on Derek’s forearm for a few seconds and Derek tries not to jerk away. He knows that, if anything, Warren is an ally. There’s no subterfuge that he can detect, but he just doesn’t like to be touched unless he initiates it. Luckily his general demeanor doesn’t encourage it and so the hand is withdrawn soon after. The other man doesn’t seem offended. Other than with their own pack, most werewolves aren’t exactly the cuddly type.

“I hear you brought a true alpha. Is he yours?”

 “Peter’s. I don’t turn people who don’t ask for it.”

And again there’s no question about how he might have been able to turn Scott. “He didn’t ask for it?”

“Long story. You’ll hear it tomorrow. Come, I’ll introduce you.”

Warren looks incredibly pleased at the prospect and waves at a woman who’s in the middle of another conversation but comes over almost immediately. “You remember Tabitha, my emissary?”

Derek has only a vague memory of her, involving baked goods in his mother’s kitchen, but he greets her as if he remembers her perfectly. It’s just common courtesy. Tabitha seemed old to him when he was a child, now she looks positively ancient. They make their way over to where Scott and Stiles are still eating and Derek makes the introductions.

Warren and Scott flash their eyes at each other, but it is Stiles who offers the expected polite platitudes. After a little fumbling around for a topic that won’t die after a few exchanges, they start discussing the dwindling privacy of werewolf packs in the advent of the internet. Scott still doesn’t say much, but Stiles becomes very animated, asking a lot of questions about how werewolves cope in an all urban environment. Warren and Tabitha both seem amused by his enthusiasm and his interjections of ‘cool’ and ‘awesome’, so Derek lets the conversation run.

After a while, Tabitha says she wishes to retire and hopes to speak to them tomorrow. She does indeed look completely worn out. Warren says goodbye as well, telling Derek how nice it is to see him doing so well and telling the others how lucky they are to have him for guidance. To their credit, both teens keep a straight face.

When they’ve left, Stiles says, “They _like_ you,” in a way that makes it sound like a major miracle.

Derek just raises an eyebrow at him, refraining from telling them that they liked his family and possibly even him as a child but don’t really know him any longer. Instead he looks around the room, but goes into full alert when he senses Stiles suddenly go rigid beside him. Stiles puts an urgent hand on Scott’s arm and Derek follows his gaze to the door, where another alpha and his emissary have just entered the room. He recognizes him immediately as the pack leader who tried to take over Beacon Hills in March. The one they got into a battle with at the warehouse. The one who injured Stiles.

The kid is completely wound up now, heart beating rapidly and all his muscles tensed. Scott rumbles a little and his eyes are bright red. Alarmed, Derek takes a quick step forward, placing himself in Scott’s line of vision. For a moment, Scott looks like he wants to push him out of the way and attack, his breathing hard and his eyes still red warning beacons.

“Don’t,” Derek says in a low voice and to his relief, Scott’s eyes meet his eventually, angry at first but returning to their normal color soon after and some of the tension drains away.

Stiles is more concerned about Scott than the other alpha now, putting a hand on his back and looking into his eyes. The moment passes without incident but Derek thinks it’s too much to hope that it went unnoticed. He nods towards the entrance and the teens agree readily that it’s time to leave. After making sure they’re not followed, Derek starts looking around until he recognizes someone who will supply him with the required information.

Half an hour later, he finds both teens in Scott’s room.

“His name is Frank Hawkins,” he says and proceeds to tell them what he found out. The Hawkins pack lost their territory in last summer’s big forest fires. Unwilling to get used to life in the city, they’ve been searching for a new territory ever since. They lost two of their betas in previous fights and one in Beacon Hills. Too weak to fight for a new living space, they’ve come to the parley to have one allotted to them.

“They want Beacon Hills?” Scott asks, sounding outraged. “No way! They attacked us. They hurt Stiles. No way are we going to share with them. Nobody can ask that of us.”

“It’s not a matter of asking. The council can decree it.”

“How? Beacon Hills belongs to us. We were there first.”

“Then you’d better make a good case tomorrow.” He wonders if he should give them more information, but if they can convince the council without Derek having to disclose all the facts, so much the better. Ordinarily he would think that the other pack doesn’t have a case. In fact they seem the sort of pack that doesn’t abide by the council rules anyway, just like the alpha pack before them. But so much has changed with the council that he can’t be sure of anything anymore.

“We’ll see,” he says, making his way to the door. They should all try and get a good night’s sleep. “Stiles. Bed.”

“Oh, I love it when you’re forceful, Derek. Especially when you order me to bed. Very kinky.”

He meets Derek’s glare with an unperturbed smirk.

 

 

Derek is dreaming. Like you sometimes do in dreams, he knows that he’s dreaming by the way he and Stiles get from the bench outside the library to his loft by climbing just one set of stairs, which look very much like the steps leading up to the burnt-out Hale house. Inside, Stiles strips off his pants and lies on the mat they used for his exercises. He’s wearing Derek’s underwear for some reason, teasing him that if he wants his property back, he’ll have to get it himself. Then they’re suddenly both naked and Stiles is saying that Derek should have known that Stiles was lying when he said he didn’t want this and that maybe Derek is just a really incompetent werewolf for not spotting it. Derek knows it’s not his fault but he can’t work out why and he doesn’t care right now because they progress to fucking in the blink of an eye and who cares about anything in that case? Then, after they’ve been rutting together for what feels like a lot longer than it should, Derek’s almost there, he just needs to… but Stiles is wriggling away from him or trying to, and Derek remembers he promised the sheriff that this wouldn’t happen, but he‘s still not letting go.

“Derek.”

“Ssshhh.” He’s just _there_ , just one more thrust or maybe two or three.

“Derek! Stop!”

And then Stiles is gone and Derek wakes up with a start, feeling disoriented for a moment and frustrated because he’s still achingly hard. He remembers instantly where he is when he sees Stiles in a t-shirt and boxers, his back pressed to the wall next to the bed. For long moments neither one of them says anything.

“Are you awake now?” Stiles finally breaks the silence. His heart is thumping painfully loud.

“Yeah. Sorry to wake you.”

“Hey, dude, you didn’t just wake me, you were humping me. Big time. And while I’m not against losing my virginity in general, with it being long overdue and all, I would like a say in the where and when. And how. I mean, I’m not a girl, so I don’t need dinners and flowers and movies and three to five dates to get there, but I insist on the other party being awake. And I would like some kind of preparation, you know, kissing and such, because ideally I’d want the whole package. Not that there’s anything wrong with your package by the feel of it…”

“Shut up!” With a warning growl, Derek gets up and staggers into the bathroom, wondering how he’s still half-hard after waking up to _that_. It may well have been the most embarrassing moment of his life. He turns the shower to cold and steps in after stripping off his trunks. It should be enough to cool him off in more than just the literal sense. But as he immerses himself under the cold spray, he throws his restraint overboard because the damage is already done anyway. So he wraps his hand around his cock, tries to block out that it was Stiles in his dream and concentrates on just the act itself. Being already halfway there, he comes quickly, counting his blessings that Stiles isn’t a werewolf and won’t be able to hear it over the noise of the water.

He takes his time to dry off, avoiding the mirror because he’s thoroughly disgusted with himself. To lose control here, of all places! And why? When he told Stilinski he had no unsavory intentions, he meant it. But the kid keeps flirting with him and Derek is wound up to the point of snapping. And… does Stiles even realize that he’s doing it? Does he mean it? Or is he simply enjoying that he found a way to get to him that Derek doesn’t quite know how to handle? It’s obvious that even with all the threats in the world, Stiles will carry on doing this as long as he gets a reaction because that’s what he does. Stiles’s words are vivid in his mind, etched there by embarrassment, and he suddenly wonders why in all the ‘ _I want to have a say in the where and how and when_ ’ there wasn’t a ‘ _who_ ’. The kid is so annoying. And Derek needs a better defense.

When he comes out of the bathroom, Stiles is back in bed, with the covers pulled up to his chin. Derek climbs in on his side and turns away from him. For a while, neither one of them says a word but he can hear the kid’s rapid heartbeat and knows he’s not asleep nor anywhere near getting there.

“Go to sleep. It won’t happen again.” It’s a safe promise to make because he knows he won’t sleep for the remainder of the night. He should just get up to use the outdoor pool to get rid of some of his tension, but he’s reluctant to leave Stiles alone in this place. It’s not as if he can defend himself like Scott can and Derek’s promised to keep him safe.

“Derek?”

“Go to sleep, Stiles.”

“What were you dreaming about?”

Derek can’t believe this kid! Okay, this definitely requires a different approach. He turns around to glower at him. Stiles meets his eyes, then grimaces.

“Okay, I know what you were dreaming about in general terms. It was pretty obvious and that’s fine. I mean, I have dreams like that all the time. And the amount of times I wake up with a boner is not even funny, sometimes two or three times a night. So yeah, I know _what_ , although obviously not the details. And I don’t really need to know the details, because that’s… anyway what I mean is, I totally understand that these things happen, and I’m not judging in any way, shape or form, but what I’m asking is, I guess… _who_ were you dreaming about?”

“That’s personal, don’t you think?”

“Yes, _yes_ , totally personal, I understand that. Completely. It’s just…” He trails off and Derek thinks that he looks more than just a little lost. And suddenly he realizes what’s been bugging him for a while now. Stiles seems _lost_ , like he no longer trusts in anything or anyone, including himself. Like what he does and says is no longer genuine, it’s tinged in sadness all the time. He remembers finding him in the warehouse and in all that babble and the kiss – can’t forget the kissing, not with Stiles mentioning it every five minutes – there was that strange remark, ‘ _why would you care about me?... I’m nothing.’_ Maybe the kid’s just suffering from low self-esteem, which seems nigh impossible in someone so loud and in your face.

“It was just a dream, Stiles,” he says as calmly as he can. He won’t encourage this, won’t encourage the idle flirting, won’t encourage any soul baring, won’t let this kid get any closer than he already inexplicably is. Because of all the people around him nowadays, it’s Stiles whom he feels the most comfortable with. And nothing good can come from that for either of them.

“Derek?”

“Is there any point in telling you to go to sleep?”

“Not really. I wanted to ask you… have you ever been with a guy?”

He was right, nothing good will come from this. “Stiles, are you having a sexual identity crisis? Because you should talk to someone else about that, maybe Scott or your dad. And I most certainly won’t discuss mine with you.”

“So, you _are_ having a sexual identity crisis?”

“No.”

“So you’ve always known that you’re bi? I’ve known for quite a while now. I mean, I’ve known that _I’m_ bi, not that you are. I think it’s cool. Why limit yourself to one gender? I mean, you’re practically cutting out fifty percent of potential mates and with my track record, I can’t really afford that. So I don’t have a problem with it.”

“I don’t either. And I’m not. Now go to sleep. You need to be sharp tomorrow.”

There’s a long silence. Derek can’t help but feel sorry for the lost kid in his bed. Only, he can’t really afford pity or friendship or any other emotion, so he suppresses the urge to comfort him the pack way, by pulling him closer. It’s uncertain how Stiles would react anyway. For all his flirting, he always retreats when he thinks Derek’s responding.

“Derek?”

He groans inwardly, resolving to pretend to be asleep from now on.

“You said my name.”

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

**6.**

Stiles is a restless sleeper. He tosses and turns, hitting and kicking an array of Derek’s body parts in the process. Three times he needs to be pushed back over to his own side of the bed because apparently he’s also a sleep cuddler. Derek ignores the fact that he hears his name mumbled twice since it’s a reasonable assumption that it’s simply because they’re sharing a bed. That’s bound to play on the subconscious. It’s the logical explanation for what happened earlier as well.

While it feels like they’re around each other all the time at home, he’s never actually spent this much time with either Scott or Stiles. Even during the two or three weeks he was helping Stiles with his exercises, it was never more than a couple of hours each day. Now he’s completely surrounded by him. For the past twelve hours he has seen and heard, not to mention _smelled,_ him constantly. No wonder his mind is getting distracted. Stiles is not someone who’s easy to ignore at the best of times.

As the hours pass - while Derek’s resting rather than sleeping - he can’t help but think back on his interactions with the kid since they met. If anything, Stiles was even more hostile than Scott in the beginning, but his misgivings were mostly worry for his friend with a healthy dose of mistrust mixed in. Despite that, he tried to help Derek when he was slowly dying from wolfsbane poisoning. After Derek had killed Peter to become the alpha, Scott was crushed but Stiles looked… betrayed. And even during his time as alpha, when Derek admittedly didn’t exactly cover himself in glory, Stiles saved him from drowning without hesitation – and kept it up for two hours. Since then, he’s been the only one to show a genuine interest. And maybe his constant questions are just down to nosiness because it’s his nature to be inquisitive, but he combines it with honest concern.

Derek knows he has trust issues. He doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with that considering his life so far. Half the time he doesn’t even trust himself. And he most certainly doesn’t rely on his judgment of character anymore. So to be on the safe side, he considers everyone hostile, then he can’t get disappointed or betrayed and more often than not, he’s proven right anyway. But Stiles has somehow wormed his way into Derek’s life without even trying.

He can’t trust this kid. He just can’t. He mustn’t. Because of who and what he is, he prefers to be surrounded by his own kind. Humans are too fragile to mingle with werewolves. They get hurt and in a pack they’re always, always the biggest liability. But Stiles somehow survives in all the mayhem that is now his life, gleefully breaking baseball bats on the backs of invulnerable creatures, part of the solution more than the problem most of the time. Derek can’t help but be astounded by that.

But what’s really getting to him is that Stiles seems to like him. It’s not like the obvious love he has for Scott or the persistent crush he has on Lydia, but a subdued affection that shines through in all their interactions. It hasn’t always been like that. In the beginning, he did no more for Derek than he would do for any stranger in the street – which is more than most people would do for a friend – but it has grown into something comfortable, familiar and… warm. Without realizing it, Derek became used to it, has come to expect it and even looks forward to it. While Stiles is all youthful awkwardness, mortifying talk and scathing sarcasm, underneath he’s retained an openness and softness that should make him vulnerable but instead just seems to make him strong.  

So maybe Derek can admit to himself that he likes Stiles, which is unusual in itself because he doesn’t like many people. What he still can’t figure out is why Stiles is doing what he’s doing at the moment. As a teenager, flirting is natural and part of the fun is trying out how far you can push. Derek assumes that flirting with another guy looks more daring even in this day and age. Maybe all of Stiles’s friends think it’s cool, especially with the way Derek reacts. It’s entirely possible that they’re laughing at him behind his back all the time. Only, he can’t quite imagine Stiles doing it.

On the other hand, he freaks out every time Derek appears to be responding. They’re the only occasions in recent times that Derek has seen Stiles genuinely afraid of him. All of this has put Derek in a situation that is as uncomfortable as it is hopeless. Stiles will probably lose interest and stop eventually, but Derek doesn’t exactly want him to do that either because he kind of likes being around Stiles and losing interest might make him stop coming round altogether, not just stop flirting. But neither can he respond because Stiles is seventeen and Derek promised the sheriff that he wouldn’t do that and Stiles is kind of innocent. Does Derek even want to respond? Does Stiles want him to? He always scrambles away when it happens. Maybe he doesn’t have quite that much courage. And from Stiles’s point of view it must have looked like Derek was going from zero to sixty without anything in between on both occasions. Which raises the question what would happen if Derek went slow…

He throws himself onto his other side, facing away from Stiles. He can’t do anything about the scent, but there’s no reason why he has to watch him sleep. Obviously the combination of the two is making him insane. He needs to stop, it’s not going to happen, he doesn’t even want it to happen, just _no_. Stiles is toying with him for shits and giggles and Derek’s not falling for that one. He’s also _not_ interested.

When he wakes up after dropping off for an hour at dawn, he’s hard again and what is more, he can feel Stiles pressed against him with a similar problem. It only takes a few seconds and then Stiles, too, comes awake with a start, scrabbling away from him, not quite out of the bed but on the very edge with the cover now pulled up to his chin again.

“I didn’t do anything,” he says quickly, blushing furiously. “I told you this happens all the time. It’s not personal. Please, don’t kill me.”

Derek can’t remember ever feeling this awkward in his whole life except for last night after he’d been humping the kid. He can’t really walk into the bathroom without revealing his own arousal, nor does he want to endure this situation a moment longer. If he can’t make Stiles stop by rebuffing him, maybe there’s another way. Once Stiles stops flirting, everything will go back to normal and if it means that Stiles will no longer pay attention to him, then so be it. It’ll happen eventually anyway and anything’s better than this.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says with a smile that feels as forced to him as it is and probably looks it, too. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“You… you do?”

“Sure, you obviously like me and that’s very flattering. I like you, too.”

There’s slack-jawed silence for longer than Derek has ever seen him speechless, until he finally croaks out, “Now you’re just creepy with all the talking and the soft voice and the smiling. Put it away, man. It’s seriously freaking me out.”

Derek shrugs. “I thought you should know.”

“No, you didn’t, you’re just winding me up. Just like everyone else does. Like you’d be even remotely interested in me. You couldn’t possibly understand that, with your stupid good looks, and your stupid toned body, and your stupid smile. But I’m just me. I don’t have any of that. I’m just the sidekick, the comic relief. So don’t toy with a guy’s feelings like that if you don’t want to follow through. Geez, guys are really no better than girls.”

He’s still just being his usual babbling, joking and provocative self and Derek’s had about as much of this as he’s willing to take. In a flash, he’s on top of Stiles, holding him down by his wrists and staring into his widened eyes. “Would you _like_ me to follow through?” Despite his erection, he has no intention of doing any of that. He just wants this to stop, so he can stop thinking about it.

After a few shocked seconds, Stiles is pushing his body against his angrily, trying to buck him off. “Get off me!”

Derek lets himself be moved easily, then watches Stiles scramble out of bed and mutter, “I hate you,” from an illusionarily safer distance. When he’s almost reached the bathroom, Derek calls his name, making him pause in the doorway without turning around.

For a brief moment, Derek wonders if he’s going too far. But Stiles isn’t known for taking subtle hints, neither is Derek good at subtlety, so he smiles again, and says in a gentle voice that’s copying Stiles’s from last night, “You said my name.”

The bathroom door banging shut resounds throughout the room. _There_ , that should do it.

 

 

It seems that Stiles doesn’t hold grudges. After his shower, he disappears into Scott’s room, emerging as if nothing happened when it’s time for breakfast. If he’s told Scott about his woes, there’s no indication of it. Although he’s benefiting from it, Derek finds it a little disconcerting that Stiles shakes off his emotions so easily. He himself could never do that, he’s been far too angry for far too long.

They all go down to the dining room together and stand around with their plates of food, while the tension of the situation seeps back into their bodies and minds. They really have bigger problems to deal with than negotiating relationships. It’s only a few minutes after they finish their food that a soft gong calls them all into the conference room for the actual parley. The room is completely devoid of furniture. Everybody finds a space to stand, surrounded by guardians along the walls. Derek greets the people he knows with a nod and gives Scott a warning glance. The teen presses his lips together with an understanding nod. No more talking from the werewolves.

Derek isn’t quite sure what to expect. Last time he was here, he was too young to participate. Instead he spent his days in the pool with the other children who’d come here with their parents, so this is all new to Derek, too. And it probably says a lot about the changes in the intervening years that nobody brings their children any longer. Stiles and Scott are definitely the youngest ones here. And apart from himself, there are only three other people who look around his age, while everyone else is at least a decade older.

Alpha Turner opens the meeting with the traditional greeting to all. Derek is acutely aware that he’s the only beta in a room with about a hundred alphas. It brings out an array of responses in him that he fights to suppress. Next to him, he can feel Scott being more tense than he’s ever known him outside a fight and Stiles’s heartbeat is so rapid, he seems on the verge of a heart attack. Wasn’t there mention of panic attacks in the past? He can only hope that won’t happen here. In view of what happened between them, he hesitates but in the end he puts a gentle hand on Stiles’s lower back. There’s a nervous jolt at the contact. After a moment Stiles turns and gives him a short grateful smile. His heartbeat, however, slows only marginally.

Derek would like to pretend it’s his imagination but he knows they’re the center of attention. If their ages and the fact that he’s a Hale weren’t enough, Scott’s the only true alpha anyone’s seen in a century. So, yes, most eyes are on them.

“As always I would like to extend a special welcome to the triad members,” Alpha Turner says now. “It’s good to see you again, Warren Curnock.” She nods to Warren, who returns the favor. “And for the first time in over a decade, we have the third member of the triad with us. You’re most welcome, Derek Hale.”

Derek nods at her, as is the custom, and at the same time feels a hand landing abruptly on his arm to turn him a little. “You’re a member of the _triad_?” Stiles asks in a loud whisper, sounding awestruck. So Deaton has at least told him about the make-up of the council, five council members plus an inner circle of three, the triad. Pity he didn’t tell him not to interrupt or show any surprise while he was at it. “You didn’t say you’re a member of the _triad_. That’s awesome, Derek. You’re, like, werewolf _royalty_.”

Derek feels a hot flash of concern at the exclamation. This is not the impression he wants Stiles to make. He never expected gravitas from the kid but a little more restraint wouldn’t go amiss. Before he can react, however, there’s a ripple of subdued laughter going through the room. Most of the others seem to find Stiles amusing, if not charming, judging by their indulgent smiles. There are some others who are full of disdain but the atmosphere has turned from apprehensive and hostile to a little more relaxed. Stiles flushes, withdraws his hand hastily and lowers his head with a murmured apology.

“We should probably hear the Hale family story first,” Alpha Turner is saying then, looking at Derek expectantly.

Knowing that this was inevitable doesn’t make it any easier. He hates talking about his family, doesn’t like to be reminded, doesn’t want to share his memories. But he takes a deep breath and then just shuts his mouth again, because Stiles has stepped forward and started to speak.

“Members of the council, honored guests, I am Emissary Stilinski and my account will be second-hand but nonetheless accurate and complete.”

Derek is torn between amusement, relief and anger. What makes Stiles think he can or should speak for him? He is Scott’s emissary, not Derek’s. On the other hand, it saves Derek from having to deal with this. He can’t be entirely sure that his voice will remain steady if he has to talk about the fire or Laura and that wouldn’t be good. He mustn’t show any weakness. So he lets the kid run with it and hopes for the best.

Stiles is incredibly well-informed. He has information about the fire that even Derek wasn’t aware of, like the names of witnesses, suspects and stages of the investigation. In light of who his father is, it’s a safe assumption that he read the police reports. He talks matter-of-factly at first, just fact upon fact, but soon his true nature shines through. Once he’s covered the fire, he starts to embellish so that a simple report turns into more of a yarn with dramatic pauses and the occasional punchline. Stiles certainly knows how to tell a colorful tale. If it wasn’t his own life, Derek would be just as riveted as everyone else seems to be.

Stiles manages to gloss over uncomfortable points such as Laura’s death quickly, while making others, like healing Cora, sound a lot more heroic than they were. He also leaves out a few things that highlight the persistent uneasiness between Scott and Derek or anything that would portray either of them in a negative light. Kate is mentioned as a culprit but not a word of Derek’s involvement with her. Derek couldn’t have wished for a better account. And luckily Stiles is so excited and nervous, that nobody can possibly tell the small lies from the truths.

When he finishes – with the end of the alpha pact while somehow managing not to mention the Nemeton – there are a few amused chuckles. Turner smiles at Stiles, saying, “You’re certainly the most unique emissary I have ever come across in my long years on the council.” Then she turns to Derek. “I am saddened to hear about your family.”

“Thank you.”

Stiles whips around at him, shaking his head furiously, his expression aghast and his gestures and body language clearly saying, ‘ _what are you doing?_ ’ Derek’s confused for a moment, then registers the way Stiles looks at the guardians as if he expects them to tear Derek to shreds any second now. Even Scott looks alarmed. “I’m a member of the triad, Stiles, I’m allowed to speak in council meetings.” And now he realizes why Stiles stepped up to speak in the first place.

“Oh! Then why didn’t you just say so, instead of letting me prattle on all this time?”

He shrugs and pats Stiles’s shoulder a little, before turning his attention back to the meeting. It’s the start of the agenda. Everybody, with the exception of the Beacon Hills contingent and the council members, is here with a grievance. There are numerous border disputes, where the arguments are long and laborious with vicious undertones that threaten to spill over into violence but thankfully don’t. Even more precarious are the discussions of a blood feud, where both parties have obviously tired of the attritions but can’t be civil enough to lay it to rest. Seeking mediation will help everyone save face and so hopefully prevent future flare-ups of the dispute.

There’s only the barest of breaks at lunchtime to allow everyone to get a drink and use the bathroom, causing Stiles to murmur grumpily that ‘ _lunch’s obviously for wimps, not werewolves_ ’. He seems to be buzzing with pent-up energy and so is Scott. However, they’re both holding up remarkably well until they come to the last item on the list, Beacon Hills.

“Alpha Hawkins has requested to claim Beacon Hills as his territory, either partially or as a whole,” Turner says, looking directly at Derek.

“Alpha Hawkins has already received his answer from us and was sent packing,” Stiles says loudly and angrily. Derek’s fears that he would be too intimidated to speak were apparently unfounded, as his anger outweighs his fear. He puts one hand on Stiles’s arm to silence him. As a human he doesn’t understand that fighting over a territory is the natural order. It’s not necessarily to be condemned, although there are still some rules to be observed.

Alpha Turner takes the outburst as his answer and asks the Hawkins emissary to make their case. The man steps forward and talks about the fire that destroyed their habitat and killed their last alpha, how they’ve been roaming ever since, trying to find a new place and that the fight at Beacon Hills ended in a stand-off.

“Is that true?” Alpha Turner asks.

“No. We stood our ground,” Stiles says emphatically. “They ran.”

“Why don’t you tell us about your alpha and his pack?”

And Stiles does, his love for Scott, as well as his pride in him, ringing from every word. There’s talk of the bite, of Scott’s struggle for control and of his resilience and character, leading to his ascension to true alpha. And of how good he is for Beacon Hills.  

“And the rest of the pack?”

“Well, there’s Isaac. He’s a beta. He and Scott work really well together. There’s Lydia. She a banshee. And there’s me, I suppose, I’m not really… well, I’m the emissary now. And the Hales, of course. There’s the three of them, Derek, Cora and Peter.”

Derek hopes that the statement will stand as it is. This is the best turn of events he can hope for.

“A banshee? Your pack seems… endearingly rag tag… but quite impressive for such a young alpha.” Turner’s voice is dripping with condescension. Her strategy seems to be to belittle Scott as much as possible. A true alpha must be causing concern for those who have power in the community. If they can keep him in check somehow, by playing on his inexperience or his youth, then he’s not such a threat to them. For now.

“They also have a hunter in their pack,” the Hawkins emissary interjects in a disgusted voice.

Derek was hoping to keep that little piece of information quiet. There’s a low growling around the room and Warren, who‘s been silent until now, asks, “Is this true, Derek?”

He can feel Scott bristling and Stiles looking at him for guidance, but this one’s too delicate to leave to a beginner. It might well prove too delicate for Derek, too, because he’s just playing it by ear as well. If he’s honest, he has no more clue what he’s doing than Stiles or even Scott. “The girl is not a member of the pack. She is… rendering assistance on occasion.” Not a lie really, because ‘on occasion’ can mean anything.

“What kind of a hunter renders assistance to a werewolf pack?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Who is she?”

Derek tries not to sigh. “Her name is Allison Argent.”

“The _Argents_? That is a grave matter indeed. Then I suppose you better let your emissary explain this one.”

Derek gives Stiles a nod, making him launch into yet another long tale. Allison ends up looking like a saint, her father a benevolent peacemaker and there’s nothing but love and understanding between everyone in Beacon Hills now that the bad guys – namely Gerard and Kate – are out of the picture. Derek tries hard no to let his own opinion show. He’s not going refute any of that if it makes their case. But it’s obvious that this tale is a lot less well received than the previous ones.

“Is this true?” Warren asks again.

“There is a truce between hunters and werewolves in Beacon Hills, yes.”

“You know you can’t have a hunter in your pack.”

The teens are both up in arms immediately, leaving Derek no time to weigh the consequences before Stiles might say something that will completely derail this discussion. Or even worse, Scott might speak because he’s already taking a step forward despite Stiles’s warning hand on his arm. Derek is only too aware that neither Scott nor Stiles will ever denounce anybody in their pack for any reason. “She’s not in the Hale pack. She’s in the McCall pack.”

Scott and Stiles both whip around to him with incredulous eyes. It’s the first time he’s said it out loud to anyone. Cora and Peter behave as if they feel the same way, but they haven’t actually discussed it. And Derek certainly hasn’t mentioned it to anyone around Scott. Right now he’s desperately trying to keep Scott alive by urging him with his eyes to stay silent. Scott’s nostrils are flaring and his eyes light up but then Stiles is there in front of him, practically putting a hand over his mouth, saying, “Don’t, Scott. Not now. Not here. Later. We’ll clear this up later. Don’t speak, please, don’t speak.” His desperation gets through to his friend somehow and Scott turns away with a last disgusted look at Derek. When he’s sure that Scott has calmed down, Stiles turns to Derek and his look is the same he had when Derek killed Peter, deep and utter betrayal. Derek can’t look away until Alpha Turner speaks again.

“So Beacon Hill has _two_ packs. Or none at all. Alpha McCall doesn’t have enough betas and the Hales don’t have an alpha.”

Derek looks at her. “Essentially, yes. But we work well together and have seen off three takeover attempts so far.”

“But you must admit that a territory as desirable as Beacon Hills can’t be left without a real pack. It could home more than one even. It’s a miracle no one’s claimed it while you and Laura abandoned it.”

Now it’s Derek’s turn to bristle. He doesn’t like the implication that Laura acted irresponsibly. Nor does he miss the undertones of envy. “You know why Beacon Hills has always been Hale territory and always will be.”

“Actually, the whole point is that we’re here to decide who’s best suited to run the territory.”

“I will not stand for that.”

“The council doesn’t take kindly to threats, Derek. And you’re in no position to make any.”

“Oh, but I am… because I own it.”

“What do you mean, you own Beacon Hills?” Warren asks, perplexed.

“Yes, Derek, what do you mean, you own Beacon Hills?” Stiles manages to sound angry and facetious at the same time. Scott is too stunned to look anything but utterly confused.

“I mean that I own the Beacon Hills Preserve, every last acre of it. I hold the title and the deed to the land. It’s always been in my family’s hand. I’m surprised you didn’t know that, Alpha Turner.”

“No, I most certainly didn’t. But ownership is of no consequence. The vast majority of us don’t legally own their territory.”

“True, but if you make it… unpleasant for my pack to live there, we’ll have to move on and who knows who will buy the land off me. I had an interesting offer from a timber company recently.”

There’s a stunned silence in the room. Derek stares at Alpha Turner as she weighs her options in her mind. It’s a long time until she says, “I think this is a good time to convene until tomorrow.”

As everyone starts leaving – Scott and Stiles angrily stomping towards the door in front of him – Derek tries not to fly apart at the knowledge that he couldn’t possibly have burnt his bridges any more thoroughly than he just did.

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

 

**7.**

There’s a buffet laid out in the dining room again, but Scott bypasses it without a second glance. “My room,” he says curtly.

Stiles hesitates with a longing look at all the food. “But… but… you know, _food…_ ”

Scott ignores him and looks at Derek. “You, too.”

Despite feeling somewhat hungry, Derek consents. He knows he can’t escape this conversation and they might as well get it over with as soon as possible. If worse comes to worst, they can always go out for something to eat later. At the moment he needs to do as much damage control as he can before Scott’s anger is left to fester.

When Derek enters Scott’s room, he’s violently pushed against the door as soon as he closes it. Scott’s hand squeezes around his neck, verging on cutting off his air supply. Derek was expecting something like this, so he doesn’t try to break free. This is neither the time nor the place to settle the question whether Scott could beat him in a fight.

At Scott’s back, Stiles looks on unhappily, saying, “Scott,” in an appeasing tone but not trying to stop him.

“What did you just do?” Scott hisses angrily.

“Trying to save Beacon Hills.”

“By telling everyone that we’re two different packs? How does that help? I thought we were in this together? Now I don’t have a proper pack any longer.”

Derek looks him in the eye, then pointedly at the hand around his neck and back until Scott releases him reluctantly. He waits a little longer before distancing himself a step or two and taking a deep breath. “You never _had_ a proper pack, Scott, you just assumed you did. Remember when you didn’t want to join my pack? What on earth made you think I want to join yours?”

“But you don’t have an alpha.”

“So? That’s only a problem if we can’t fend off other packs. If we work together – which, by the way, you have to anyway because _you_ actually only have one beta – we can all live happily together.”

“Or not,” Scott growls. “All you had to do was pretend that you’re in my pack. You don’t even have to actually join. I don’t want the Hales in my pack anyway. What’s wrong with just pretending? Or maybe just keeping your mouth shut. Because now they think neither of us can handle it.”

“And you think that’s my fault?” Derek roars, suddenly angry. “The real problem here is you. You and your damned insistence that you know better, that you can do it your way without ever listening to anyone else, that everybody can be saved. Well, here’s a newsflash, _Alpha McCall_ : sometimes you have to make tough choices, whether you like it or not. I told you from the beginning to stay clear of the hunters, but _no_ , you thought it was more important to get into Allison’s pants. And now the council will never trust you because they will _never_ trust a hunter.”

“But the Argents are retired,” Stiles intercedes. He keeps taking a step one way, then changing his mind and moving back to his original position before trying a different direction.

“They will always be hunters, just like we’ll always be werewolves. And they’re _Argents._ They’re what you would call hunter royalty.” He’s trying to rein it in, but he’s so frustrated with Scott that he’s raising his voice even to Stiles, who already looks upset enough. “And we all know they’re not really retired, don’t we? I’ll be damned if I lose Beacon Hills because of them.”

Stiles is rubbing both hands over his hair, making a complete mess of it and looking miserably from Scott to Derek and back again. “So you said you’re not with us to dissociate yourself from the hunters. So that the council will still trust you, even if they don’t trust us.” He walks a few steps towards the bed, then turns abruptly to look at Scott. “Deaton said not to mention the hunters. I tried, I really did.”

That much was obvious. Derek noticed how carefully he left Allison off his list of pack members. He only spoke about her after the other emissary brought her up. Stiles did the best he could, most likely the best that could be done under the circumstances. Derek knew that the parley would be tough, but it actually went worse than he imagined. There are always too many variables.

“Nobody’s blaming you, Stiles,” Scott says softly and the teens exchange one of those looks that underpins their deep friendship with unconditional support.

Derek lowers his eyes. He’s been alone for a long time and it’s always worked well for him, so there’s no need to feel envious. His anger abates, to be replaced by a bone-deep tiredness. “You did good, Stiles. It’s not your fault.”

Stiles smiles briefly at him, but Scott is back to glaring. “You betrayed us. When things got tough, you jumped ship. I always knew I couldn’t trust you.”

“I didn’t jump ship. I’m more like the salvage crew. Neither of us wants Beacon Hills to be overrun by other packs. You put yourself out of the running. I put myself back in. Even if I had to do it with threats and money.”

“Do you really own Beacon Hills?” Stiles asks, incredulous and amused at the same time.

“Of course, I don’t own Beacon Hills.”

“See, I knew you were ly…”

“I only own the preserve.”

“…ing. Seriously? All of it?”

“Every last tree.”

“I didn’t know that. How come I didn’t know that?”

“Because it’s under the care of a company who runs it to my instructions. Or rather to my mother’s instructions. There was never any reason to change those.” He looks pointedly at Stiles. “ _Or tell anyone_. How did you think I can afford to drive an expensive car and not have a job?”

“I don’t know. Drug dealing? Gun running? Shooting porn? Maybe you write bestsellers under a pseudonym. You could be the real E. L. James and that woman’s just a front.”

“Who?”

“What’s going to happen now?” Scott cuts in impatiently.

“The council will discuss it overnight and tomorrow they’ll give their verdict. Then we all go home.”

“And you think they’ll give Beacon Hills to you?” His bitter voice makes it clear what he thinks of that particular option.

“At the moment that would be the best case scenario. But I really can’t say which way it’ll go.” Tired of this argument and Scott’s self-righteousness, Derek makes his way to the door but stops briefly to look at Stiles. “Don’t go anywhere on your own.”

 

 

The buffet turns out to be excellent again and, feeling ravenous from too little food all day, he eats more than he normally would. Nobody’s speaking to him tonight, which is no more than he expected. The Hales have held a special position for so long that a lot of people will be watching their downfall with glee.

He already knows that his place on the triad is untenable. He’s a beta and the long line of natural born alphas in continuous succession has come to an end with Laura. If he was still an alpha, he could possibly make a case for an unbroken family line, but it’s dubious at best. After the meeting today, the rest of the council will realize it, too. He has no doubt that they’ll make that decision first. Alpha Turner will be pleased. She has always been a little jealous of the Hales.

The place on the triad is of no interest to him. All it gives him is a veto right in council decisions about petty little squabbles and even that needs to be a majority vote of all three members. He doesn’t have much use for the council in general. All their decisions rely on compliance because there’s no way to enforce them. It’s only because the members agree to abide by them that they’re carried out. The council was founded primarily to find ways to keep the werewolf community alive and, most of all, secret. Only about eighty percent of werewolves are members, the rest just do whatever they damn well please. People like Deucalion certainly don’t pay any attention, so there’s no protection against packs like that. All Derek is trying to do here is to make sure that the other eighty percent don’t turn into potential enemies as well.

When he’s nearly finished eating, Scott and Stiles arrive. Scott comes marching up to him and hands him his own room key. “Stiles and I will be sharing tonight.”

Derek is not particularly surprised. It’s the kind of juvenile pettiness he would expect from Scott. On the other hand, there’s no reason for Scott to keep up a behavior befitting an alpha any longer. After today his reputation is unsalvageable anyway. Derek hands over his own key without a word. No doubt his stuff will have been moved already.

He lingers over his food until the teens have filled their plates and left the room with them. Then he makes his own way upstairs. The bed is unmade and smells of Scott. He straightens the sheets with a grimace. Then he has a long shower. It’ll be good to have a bed, even a room, to himself. After what happened last night, it’s obvious that he’s not well suited for sharing.

There’s a knock on the door as he’s coming out of the bathroom. When he answers it, Stiles looks at him with widening eyes, which noticeably travel down his towel-clad body. “Way to make a guy feel inadequate,” he mutters.

“Did you want something?” Derek asks, a little irked. He thought he’d cured the kid of flirting and innuendos. He really doesn’t need this tonight.

“Uhm, yeah, your toothpaste was still in the bathroom.” He hands it to Derek but remains where he is.

Derek looks at the tube in his hand with bemusement. What made Stiles think he couldn’t do without this? After all, there are complimentary hotel toiletries. So he opens the door wider and waits. There’s only a moment’s hesitation, then Stiles slips past him and shuts the door. Derek suspects that he’s doing it for the same reason Derek wanted him to come in, which is to prevent Scott from overhearing them. He starts as soon as the door is shut because they don’t have much time. “I know you’re upset, Stiles, but during the meeting tomorrow, can you try and work with me?”

Stiles rubs his neck uncomfortably. “Scott’s pretty angry. And so am I. You were out of line. You completely froze Scott out as if he’s doesn’t matter. But I want to keep other packs away from home, so I’ll do what I can to keep Beacon Hills safe. If that means working with you, then I will.”

Stiles has ever been more cautious and level-headed than Scott, although they give the complete opposite impression. Derek smiles. “Good. Did you want something?” There must be something because the toothpaste was a laughably flimsy excuse.

Stiles gives Derek’s body another quick once-over and sighs dramatically. Then he grins, shakes his head and puts his hand on the door knob – which is good because Derek is ready to strangle him again. Stiles hesitates and, with his eyes averted, says quietly, “I just didn’t want Scott to be alone tonight,” before he slips back out.

Derek stares at the closed door in confusion. What’s that supposed to mean? Was he apologizing for no longer wanting to share a room? Derek really, _really_ doesn’t mind that at all. He’ll have a bed to himself, no annoying kid will flirt with him until he does stupid stuff like dream about him and he’ll be surrounded by Scott’s scent, so that should help to keep him irritated enough to stay grounded. He’s actually a little afraid that he’ll dream about Scott instead.

In the end, his fear proves unfounded. Apparently the flirting and the scent are _not_ what’s causing his dreams.

 

 

The next day is just as excruciating as the previous one. From the way Scott ignores him at breakfast, Derek can tell that there won’t be any help forthcoming from that quarter. He waits for the teens to enter the conference hall before he makes his way in to stand next to them. If he left it up to Scott, they would undoubtedly end up at opposite ends of the room. Luckily, the teen doesn’t take it so far as to move after Derek turns up. It wouldn’t help their case if they looked too obviously divided. Stiles gives him a strained nod.

The whole agenda needs to be worked through all over again, since the first day is used to present the problems, while the second day brings the council’s decisions. Derek wasn’t even interested the first time around, never mind having to wait through it again. But at least they’re moving slightly quicker through each item and so arrive at Beacon Hills in the early afternoon.

“The council has come to the decision that the Hales no longer qualify for a seat on the triad,” Alpha Turner says. “It pains me to have to tell you that after this parley your rights will cease. However, as a token of respect for your family, you and your sister, as your mother’s last surviving children, will remain welcome at any parley you choose to attend for the remainder of your life.”

It takes all his restraint not to tell her that he doesn’t want to go to their stupid meetings anyway. Although he has no intention of ever attending again, it would be childish to say it out loud. He just wants her to come to the only point he’s interested in today.

“As for the matter of Beacon Hills, the council is not convinced that you would indeed carry out your threat of selling it. Surely you would not dishonor your mother’s memory like that. So we have decided to disregard that possibility.”

How Derek hates it when people who barely knew her invoke his mother. And they’re calling his bluff, too! He didn’t expect that. Fuck! He glares at her and ignores both Stiles and Scott looking at him in alarm. When confronted with the alternative, Beacon Hills going exclusively to the Hales  apparently no longer seems such a terrible option to them.

“So we have looked at Beacon Hills and come to the conclusion that neither pack is suitable to hold the territory on their own. With a view that the bond between the two packs is tenuous at best, we have decided that another pack is needed to provide leadership.”

“Wait,” Derek says. He really wanted to avoid this, but these are desperate times. “Our packs have a stronger bond than you think. We’re actually… affiliated.” He wasn’t sure if he could pull it off. But being surrounded by alphas has kept him completely tense all day anyway, so the lie is impossible to detect.

There’s a surprised pause, then Warren asks, “Through you personally?”

Derek nods. If he has to do this, he’s certainly not going to drag Cora into it. “Yes.”

“With whom?”

He deliberately conjures up his dream from last night in all its x-rated glory to make this sound convincing. It makes him feel and appear embarrassed, which serves to explain why he hasn’t mentioned this until now. “The emissary of the McCall pack.”

Now the silence lasts longer with everyone staring at either him or Stiles, who turns to look at him with a questioning frown.

“Is this true, Emissary Stilinski?” Warren asks.

Stiles still looks uncertain, as well he may. Derek gives him an encouraging nod, after which Stiles turns to Warren with a grin hiding his complete ignorance of what’s going on. “Absolutely. It’s totally true.”

There are some chuckles at his vehemence. Then Alpha Turner says coldly, “It’s still not enough to convince me.”

“But it’s enough to convince _me_ ,” Warren says. “I’m changing my vote to keeping Beacon Hills as Hale territory.”

“That would leave the council at a stalemate.”

“In which case the triad decides. I vote for the Hales, you vote against them. Shall we ask our third member whom he votes for?”

Derek tries hard not to grin triumphantly when Warren turns to him with an amused smile. Warren must really hate Turner because he’s obviously enjoying her frustration. So Derek’s first and last act as a member of the triad will be to vote for himself. For once in his life everything works in his favor. He can’t quite suppress a smirk. “I vote for the Hales.”

Alpha Turner is not exactly gracious in defeat but she manages to keep an even tone, as she proclaims Beacon Hills Hale territory. Scott hasn’t stopped glowering, while Stiles looks merely relieved.

And then it’s over.

Derek stays where he is as everyone starts filing out of the room. The relief is overwhelming, disproportionate to what he has objectively achieved. All he managed to do is keep the status quo. It doesn’t mean that they’ll be any better off than before, just that they’re no worse off either. And he really doesn’t like the look on Hawkins’ face at the result. Hopefully, the guy learned his lesson the last time he was in Beacon Hills, but Derek’s not so sure. For now he just waits until he’s alone and then allows himself a broad grin at the empty room for a few minutes. In the end, he got everything he could have hoped for.

Eventually, when he’s sure he got his features under control, he makes his way up to his room to pack. People are already leaving, seemingly in a rush to get back home. Stiles knocks on his door to tell him they’re ready to go and Scott lasts no further than the jeep before he whirls around and hisses at Derek, “Are you happy now?”

Derek grins. “Yes.”

“You tricked us, I know you did. I don’t know how but you needed us here to play your own little game. You had your own agenda from the beginning. And in the end you got exactly what you wanted, Beacon Hills all to yourself.”

Instead of responding in kind to his anger, Derek smiles and leans in a little so he can speak quietly in Scott’s ear. “I know you’re the wunderkind here, Scott, but you’ve only been a werewolf for two _years_. The Hales have been in Beacon Hills for over two _centuries_. I’m not handing it over to anyone, and that most definitely includes you.”

He does feel a little smug but mostly he’s relieved, which isn’t something he would want Scott to know. Scott is only partly right. This is the outcome Derek has been hoping for, but he never expected it. He thought the council might accept that the two packs together could run the territory. Scott’s pack was out of the running as soon as the hunters were mentioned, but if Derek had planned it that way, he would have disclosed that little fact himself. He wasn’t exactly happy at the prospect of sharing, but he would have accepted it as a viable option. Everything after that was just increasingly desperate damage control that unexpectedly yielded a better result than originally hoped for. And he must admit that in his heart, he feels that Beacon Hills belongs to the Hales, regardless of who owns the land and who else lives on it. It is home.

The journey back is almost completely silent. Derek is stretched out in the back, trying to replenish his energy after two nights of very little sleep, but only manages to doze. Scott is almost aggressively typing on his phone, his anger and frustration radiating from him in waves. Stiles is driving too fast, maybe in an effort to rid himself of the uncomfortable situation as quickly as possible. He only once asks if anybody wants to stop at a roadside diner and takes the lack of response as a negative. Even Derek, who doesn’t usually get affected by other people’s moods, is glad when they drop him off at his loft.

It’s still early, so Cora is still up, busy on the laptop he bought her recently. She must have been worried about him because she jumps up and hugs him when he gets in. “How did it go?”

He grins and she whoops a little, pulling him to sit with her on the couch and holding out the cereal box she’s been eating from. Derek looks at the sticky mess in disgust and declines despite his hunger. It takes him a while to tell her what happened. She’s never been to a parley, so she’s interested in all the little details, not just the outcome. He leaves out what happened at night though. That will be one of those incidents he’ll never talk about – or think about if can help it. He has accumulated quite a few of those in his life.

When he’s finished, he makes his way to the fridge, drinks some orange juice straight from the carton, which he knows Cora hates, and then he looks for some food. He can feel his sister’s presence behind him.

“You told them you have an affiliation?”

“Yes.”

“With _Stiles_?”

“Yes.” There’s some Mexican food left that passes the sniff test, so he puts it in the microwave to heat it up.

“Are you crazy?”

“Not really. It worked, didn’t it?”

“And Stiles confirmed it?”

Derek smiles a little when he thinks of Stiles’s fervent response. “He was very eager.”

“Does he even know what it means?”

“Nope.”

“You _are_ crazy. Scott will kill you when he finds out. No, scratch that. _Stiles_ will kill you.”

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

 

 

**8.**

Despite his insistent questioning, Derek isn’t stupid enough to tell Peter what happened at the parley. He knows full well that the man will use any and all knowledge to his own advantage and probably spring it on everyone at the most inopportune moment. He gives his uncle a bare summary of the outcome and leaves it at that, while Cora professes complete ignorance. Naturally, Peter knows they’re lying about something, although not the specifics, but neither one of them is very concerned about that.

Derek has to suppress the urge to see Stiles. They’re back in Beacon Hills now, which isn’t so dangerous that the kid needs constant protection. Nevertheless, he catches himself driving past the Stilinski house whenever he goes somewhere. It’s usually only a small detour but one he’s hard-pressed to justify to himself. It’s just that it makes him feel better to see the jeep in the drive, especially when his father’s cruiser is there as well.

He starts renovating the Hale house. He could afford to have it done professionally, but his father did a lot of work on the house when the Hale children were small and Derek wants to do it himself. It should keep him busy for the summer and hopefully his mind off things that are getting him nowhere. He suspects the reason he feels the need to create some kind of home is because he got Cora back. Laura tried to do the same for him away from Beacon Hills, which suggests it might be an older sibling syndrome.

On the second day out in the woods, he’s working on the foundation, laying down wood over the holes that are riddling the floor. He listens to a car pull up, which he recognized as Stiles’s jeep before it came into view, so he goes outside onto the veranda to meet him.

“Hey, Derek.” Stiles trots over to him, climbing the steps to the veranda without hesitation and casting a curious eye inside at his handiwork before standing next to him.

“Are you sure Scott will be happy for you to come out here?” Derek’s still a little irritated that Scott doesn’t see the benefit of what he did at the parley. Or maybe it’s just the fact that Stiles appears to be taking Scott’s side that’s bugging him.

“Yeah, because I can’t decide what to do with my own time by myself. Naturally, I run all my decisions by him. Just the other day, when I was at his house, I asked him if I could use the bathroom. And guess what, he actually allowed it. I was totally overwhelmed with gratitude.”

Derek can feel the real anger behind all the sarcasm. That’s not something he’s ever had to deal with before, not from Stiles. He doesn’t quite know how to handle that and it makes him angry in turn. Why is this kid always making him feel off-balance? “Okay. Let me rephrase that: what do you want?”

“Nothing. Forget I was here.” Stiles turns on his heel and moves back down the steps towards his car.

Derek is tempted to just let it go. Letting go is always so much easier. What is it to him how Stiles feels about anything? But somehow it pains him to see the kid like this. His sarcasm is no longer used as a means to gain attention or as a defense or deflection. It now feels like real anger, hiding real pain. Derek fixed his leg, he might as well try to fix the rest. However, fixing the leg was something only he could do because he was the only one who could bully Stiles into it. He’s not so sure how suitable he is for the rest.

“Wait.”

Stiles stops halfway to his jeep, immediately, but without turning around.

“You didn’t come all the way out here without a reason. I want to know what it is.” That didn’t come out quite as he’d envisioned it in his head, but it seems to suffice.

Stiles turns and comes back up the steps. “I saw Peter in town today. He practically bumped into me. No, he did in fact do the bumping-into-me thing. By pure coincidence, of course.”

“What did he want?”

“He asked a lot of questions about the parley. About what happened.”

Derek suddenly feels tense. “And you said…?”

“’ _Get lost, Peter. If you want information, why don’t you ask someone closer to home?’_ ”

“That’s all you said?”

“Yes. That is all I said. Why’s he so keen anyway? And why do you _so obviously_ not want him to know anything?”

Derek shrugs. “He can make mischief with the most innocent information. The less he knows the better.”

“Yeah, I agree on the mischief making front. He’s the master of mischief making. Nobody ever made better mischief in the history of mischief making.”

It’s good to see a genuine smile on Stiles, so he smiles back. This seems to be going well. Or _not_. Because Stiles’s smile dies suddenly and he averts his eyes. “I’d better go.”

“Okay.” What else can he say? But when Stiles is halfway back to his jeep again, he adds, ”I could do with some help.”

Stiles turns back to him, a strange expression on his face. “With the house?”

“No, with my knitting patterns. Of course, with the house.”

“Sarcasm. I like it… but I think I’d better not.” Stiles gives him another weak smile, raises his hand in goodbye and gets into his jeep.

Derek watches him until he disappears between the trees, then turns back to the house. Somehow he isn’t surprised that Stiles turned him down. Why would he want to spend his summer vacation with hard work? With Derek?

 

 

The next day, Stiles is back at the house just after lunch. He’s wearing grass-stained jeans, which are ripped at the top of one of the thighs, and is proffering Starbucks coffee and muffins. Having been out here all morning, Derek was just about to go home for something to eat but decides to stay a bit longer. They sit side by side on the steps with their drinks.

“Does all this really belong to you?” Stiles asks, indicating towards the trees.

“Yep.”

“So, you’re like Jackson, really. You have the car, the looks and a shitload of money.”

“I am _nothing_ like Jackson.” For starters, the preserve doesn’t make him a fortune, since he doesn’t allow much tree cutting, so he‘s not exactly rich, just comfortable.

“Yeah, alright, point taken. There are no scales or killing sprees. And you’re not a bully, just grumpy. And you’re actually much prettier than he is. I kind of like you better, too. And you never went out with Lydia and treated her like dirt, so that counts in your favor as well. But he was the lacrosse captain, or, excuse me, _co_ -captain. Do you play lacrosse?”

Stiles is doing the finger sucking thing again with his coffee and Derek hastily turns away when he realizes he’s staring.

“No, I don’t play lacrosse.”

“Never played anything at all?”

“Basketball.”

“Yeah, I probably wouldn’t be any good at that either. But I can warm the bench really well. I’m an expert at that.”

There it is again. This new lack of self-esteem when self-deprecating humor is a whole lot less funny than it used to be and contains a whole lot more belittling himself. Derek doesn’t know what to do with that, he just knows that he doesn’t like it. “I see you’ve come dressed for work.”

“What, this? Are you criticizing my fashion choices, Mr. I-only-wear-dark-colors-because-I’m-such-a-moody-werewolf? This, I can tell you, is the newest craze. It’s called proletarian chic. Or rather it’s-time-to-mow-the-lawn chic.”

Derek smiles and Stiles bumps his shoulder. “I like it when you smile. You should do it more often.”

Which, naturally, has the opposite effect, because now he’s self-conscious about it. He gets up. “Let’s do some work then.”

 

 

Stiles is a lot more handy with tools than Derek would have given him credit for. He anticipated squashed thumbs or even sawn-off fingertips, but the kid works accurately and fast. He has a good grasp on structural integrity and can estimate measurements better than Derek can. He also talks a lot, but Derek knew that before they started.

He seems to know a lot about basketball, a myriad of curious facts and even the scores of famous players and the latest games. Derek never knew that Stiles was interested in basketball, he certainly never mentioned it before. He’s better informed than Derek, who follows only half-heartedly since he stopped playing after the fire. What Stiles doesn’t know one day, he does the next, as if he’s looked it up overnight. Maybe he hates having to admit any lack of knowledge.

There are subjects they avoid or rather Stiles avoids because a good part of Derek’s side of the conversations is made up of grunts. Scott is one of those subjects. Stiles barely mentions him, until one day he lets slip that his friend is still mad at Derek.

“Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Still mad at me?”

“I never was to begin with. We got a result. What more do we want? It’s not as if Beacon Hills actually belongs to you. I mean it obviously does in the legal sense, but you’re not gonna go all territorial and forbid us to walk through the woods, are you? We managed not to make it worse, which is good thing in my books. So I think we should all calm the hell down and forget about it. Nobody cared about who owns what before the parley and nobody cared what the council thought either. I think Scott isn’t really angry about the outcome. I think he thinks you planned it from the beginning. And that you manipulated him into something somehow.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Think that?”

“No. Can we not talk about Scott?”

Derek doesn’t point out that it was Stiles who brought him up in the first place. It doesn’t take him long to realize that he doesn’t really need to ask a lot of questions. If he just keeps quiet, Stiles has a natural tendency to fill the silences. Derek spends a lot of time seemingly not paying attention, but he finds out a lot that way.

About Lydia for example. “She’s going out with Aiden now. It’s kind of like her relationship with Jackson in reverse. He was really mean to her and still always went back to her. I mean, who wouldn’t? Now she gets to be the mean one, not that he doesn’t thoroughly deserve it. But she always gets with Aiden in the end, because she’s only pretending. It’s good for her. She needs to be in charge for a change. So much of her life is out of her control. It must be nice to have someone running after you instead of running after someone else all the time. Not that I would know anything about that. I certainly wouldn’t run if somebody ran after me. No, I would stand very still and let them catch me.” Stiles hammers in a nail with more force than necessary, mumbling, “Yeah, like that’s ever gonna happen.”

No matter how upset he seems about his lack of success, he doesn’t sound jealous any longer. Unless he’s truly selfless enough to be happy because Lydia is happy. That’s something Derek can’t believe of anyone. If he was in love Lydia, he would want to rip Aiden’s throat out, so he assumes that Stiles is over his crush and just fed up with being alone.

“Would you like _me_ to run after you, Stiles?” Derek isn’t sure where that came from. It was in his head and then it came out of his mouth almost without his permission.

Stiles glances at him for only a moment, then hammers in another nail with even more force. “I think you need to buy more nails tomorrow.”

Derek wants to feel relieved that the flirting is well and truly over but somehow he isn’t. Maybe he should take Stiles’s hint. He nails down another floorboard, then says, “Yeah, don’t come out tomorrow. I’ll go to the hardware store.”

There’s a long silence, if the sound of aggravated hammering can be classed as silence. When there’s a pause eventually, Stiles says quietly, “I could come with you.”

“No, I’ll go on my own.” He needs a break from being with the kid. It’s obviously making him say things better left unsaid.

“Sure.”

 

 

The next day Derek thinks it might be more practical to have someone else to help with the carrying, so he swings by Stiles’s house to ask him. The kid comes out before he even has a chance to get out of his car. Climbing into the passenger seat with a smirked ‘ _good morning_ ’, he starts talking about the bacon he burnt this morning and how cereal really doesn’t compare to bacon as breakfast food. By the time they get to the store, Derek knows the pros and cons of every cereal on the market, most of them he’s never heard of.

Stiles spends most afternoons out at the house. Usually he brings coffee and food of some kind. Derek has started watching the foam sucking covertly on days when he feels calm and in control and studiously looks the other way on days when he feels anything but. Sometimes he wants to tell Stiles not to come out here anymore. And sometimes, when Stiles is a little later than usual, he fears that he’ll do just that.

 

 

“Where’s Scott?” Derek asks him outright one day.

“Doing something with Kira.” Stiles sound despondent.

“When was the last time he did something with you?”

Stiles squirms a little next to him on the step and picks at his pizza topping. “It’s not like that. He does ask me to come. I just don’t feel like it. Kira’s nice and all, but it’s not the same anymore. We do different stuff and talk about different stuff when she’s around. And I always think that they’d rather be alone even if they don’t say it. I’m, like, the charity case.”

Derek looks at him and continues to eat his pizza in silence. He’s not sure if Scott has advanced to being a safe topic of conversation yet, so he waits. Waiting almost always yields results and this is no exception.

“Scott and I used to do everything together. We practically lived at each other’s houses. Then Allison came along and he wanted to be with her all the time. But it was cool. There was that werewolf thing that he needed me for and she was his first girlfriend, so I could understand it. But Kira already knows that he’s a werewolf, so he can talk to her about it, and he’s just as obsessed with her as he was with Allison. And she’s his second girlfriend and I’m still on zero.”

Stiles pauses, still picking up tiny bits of food and eating them listlessly.

“I’m such a shit really. I’m jealous of my best friend. I should be happy for him. And I am. I swear I am. I just don’t want to have it rubbed in my face all the time that I can’t find anyone, which is really no surprise with the kind of people I go after. Or not even go after, more like think about all the freaking time without ever telling them. And who knows? If I ever find someone who actually likes me back, I may be the same way, wanting to be with them all the time. How would I even know?”

Derek refrains from asking who, apart from Lydia, he’s referring to. Instead he pretends he knows more about this sort of thing than Stiles does and says, “If you think about them all the time, chances are that you’ll want to be with them all the time as well.”

Stiles looks up sharply as if he forgot that Derek is there, or didn’t expect him to speak. Then he smiles a little. “I bet when you’re with someone, you’re all withdrawn and pretending you don’t care as much as you do. And they need to force you to admit that you even like them and you pretend to get annoyed when they get too close.”

“Stiles, I’m a werewolf. When I’m with someone, I want them within my sights at all times. I want to be around them all the time, for protection but also just to be close. I’m a wolf, being with someone is like pack, only more so.”

“You’re a cuddler.” Stiles grins happily, then looks down at his food again, his face suddenly gloomy.

Derek sighs, wondering what it means that he’s spending so much time with Stiles and how long it will take the kid to cotton on to that and start teasing him about it after what he’s just said. “Just remember that Scott’s a werewolf, too.”

“Yeah, I’ll try.”

 

 

Over time, Derek sees more than just glimpses of the old Stiles. The constant chatter’s back and it sounds just like it did before, funny and like a running commentary of everything that happens in his life, rather than a way to express his discontentment. Maybe the work is doing him good, the fact that he’s creating something with his hands, something tangible. Or maybe it’s because he’s no longer alone so much. When he’s with Derek, he isn’t reminded that all his friends have paired off now. At least that’s what Derek thinks. He’s just enjoying that the kid is getting back to normal and doesn’t question the how and why.

About a month after they started work, Stiles brings his laptop out to the house one day to show Derek a 3D rendering of what he imagines the house looked like before the fire. He found some photographs in an old newspaper, so the outside is pretty accurate. The inside, not so much, but Derek is amazed by the virtual tour and the attention to detail.

“When did you do this?”

“Last night after I got home.”

“You have nothing better to do on a Friday night? What were your friends doing?”

“Bowling and a meal.” His voice is curt.

“Why didn’t you go?”

Stiles shrugs. “Bowling requires an even number. I didn’t want to mess up the couples.”

“Did they ask you?”

“Yes, they asked me. What is this, twenty questions?”

Derek can hear the frustration in his voice. Sometimes Stiles slips back into irritation and Derek has to jolly him out of it or distract him. He looks back at the screen. “Show me the second floor.”

Stiles smiles wildly and explains some more of the details to him, but Derek’s only half-listening. They’ve finished work on the house for the day. It’s time to go home to shower and have something to eat, but he’s reluctant to go right now. His evenings seem strangely quiet nowadays, even when Cora’s home, which she rarely is. By comparison, his nights are incredibly crowded because his dreams haven’t really abated since the parley.

After a while, he interrupts Stiles in mid-sentence with, “I can bowl.”

Stiles freezes. He stares at the screen without saying a word. Derek doesn’t dare to look at him, he’s so embarrassed and so angry with himself. _Now_ who can’t leave well enough alone? When he finally turns his head, Stiles hasn’t moved at all, only his lips are pressed together in a thin line. His heart is beating loud and fast and his breathing is a little uneven. Then he abruptly closes his laptop and gets up off the step. “Don’t do that,” he says in a shaky voice. He walks to his car with stiff movements that have nothing to do with being sore from the work and drives off without looking at Derek or speaking to him again.

Derek goes out that night and doesn’t come back until the next morning.

 

 

Having contemplated the problem at a bar two towns over, Derek decides he was right all along. Stiles was delirious with blood loss when he kissed him at the warehouse. Then he flirted with him to cover his embarrassment or maybe because he realized that Derek didn’t know how to handle it. When Derek reacted, he got scared because it was just a bit of fun to him and he didn’t want Derek to respond, he wanted him to be out of his depth. Derek doesn’t think it was malicious. It’s just something that Stiles does.

He doesn’t go out to the house on Sunday. He’s tired from his night out and he needs a break from work and from being around Stiles. He doesn’t even know what he wants from the kid. He wants him to stop showing up in his dreams, but to achieve that he would have to tell him to stop showing up in his life. And he can’t bring himself to do that. Unbelievably, he wants the flirting back. He would react differently now, maybe reciprocate a little, just for fun. Perhaps Stiles senses that his attitude has changed and that’s the reason he stopped. Because Stiles was just _joking._

“I’m going out,” Cora calls from the door.

Derek grunts a reply and Cora comes back to look down on him where he’s sprawled on the couch. “Are you okay?”

He nods.

“You don’t look okay.”

“I’m fine. Go. Have fun.”

“Okay. Call me if you need anything. And shower.”

He hears the door open and close and stares at the high ceiling. There’s a water stain up there. He should get up on the roof one day soon to check it while the weather is good. He should go to the house and do some more work. He should exercise. He should do _some_ thing. He should stop thinking about Stiles.

Last night he was with a woman he picked up at the bar and everything was fine until he dozed off for a few minutes afterwards. And there was Stiles again, naked and spurring him on while he was fucking him. He woke up with a start, covered in cold sweat, finding himself naked in bed with some woman whose name he could barely remember. He’d dreamt about Stiles again. In someone else’s bed. The whole point of going out was to _not_ dream about Stiles. He doesn’t want to dream about Stiles. Stiles is seventeen. Stiles is a guy. Stiles doesn’t really want him.

Cora must have forgotten something, because the door opens again but he knows immediately it’s not her. He must have been so distracted by his thoughts that he didn’t hear Stiles come up the stairs. Or if he did, he thought he was imagining it.

“Derek?”

Derek doesn’t answer, doesn’t get up, doesn’t care that he hasn’t shaved and is still in the clothes he wore last night – which reek of sex, although Stiles probably won’t be able to notice. His body is too tired to move and his mind too tired to function.

Stiles comes slowly into view at the end of the couch. He looks down on Derek for a few moments, then smiles weakly. “Cora said to just let myself in. Long night?”

“Incredibly short night. Very long evening.”

Stiles’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “You weren’t at the house.”

“Because I’m here. I didn’t think _you_ would be anyway.”

Stiles looks very serious now. “Neither did I. I… I want to carry on, but I need you to stop.”

Derek can’t make any sense of that sentence at all. “Stop what?”

“You know what. Just stop.”

Derek nods. “’Kay.” He _doesn’t_ know, but if Stiles wants him to stop, he’ll figure it out.

For long moments, they just stay like that, looking at each other and Derek suddenly really wants to kiss him. He’s never allowed himself to think that far while awake. It has always been about spending more time with the kid because he’s such good company. Somehow they’ve become friends, were friends even before the kiss. And if he wants to kiss Stiles, he should really, _really_ stop calling him ‘the kid’ in his head. That’s kind of disturbing.

“I’ll be working Scott’s shift at the vet’s tomorrow morning. He’s doing a thing with Kira. But I can come out in the afternoon.”

“’Kay.”

Stiles hesitates a little longer, then nods and walks towards the door. Derek forces himself to stay still, to not call him back – _to say what exactly?_ – to not get up and stop him from leaving – _to do what exactly?_ – to just stay here and be sensible.

Then Stiles comes rushing back, falls to his knees next to him with a painful-sounding thud and presses his lips to his mouth. It’s very different from last time. It’s kind of soft and desperate at the same time. Derek parts his lips almost immediately because he doesn’t want to waste a single second of this. Stiles’s tongue pushes in and rubs against his, over his teeth, along the sides of his mouth. There’s a hand in his hair, stroking, then grabbing a little too tightly and his own hand comes up to move into Stiles’s hair. He must have had a shower not so long ago because his hair is still a little damp and he smells of shampoo and soap.

And then he’s gone. Mumbling an apology, he gets up and hurries from the room without shutting the door. Derek wonders how he’s supposed to stop whatever Stiles wants him to stop _now_. Because he doesn’t want to stop anymore.

And he knows he’s completely and utterly fucked.

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

 

**9.**

Sometimes it feels to Derek as if he’s spent half his life trying to forget. On the one side there are Kate and Jennifer, both disastrous errors in judgment. On the other side there are Paige, his family and later Laura, all the people he doesn’t want to forget but can’t bear thinking about either. Boyd and Erica, too. Because all of those losses were his fault in one way or another. Nothing will ever change that, so he simply tries not to remember.

But how do you forget someone who’s still around, very much alive and full of energy? Because he knows he has to forget Stiles. This wouldn’t even work if Stiles wanted him. If Stiles somehow liked him, had a crush on him, wanted to be with him, even then it would never work. Derek hasn’t quite got over the shock that he’s attracted to the ki… guy yet. It’s not so much that he _is_ a guy. Although he’s never felt any sexual inclinations before, he’s never had a problem with physical contact with other guys, as long as they’re pack. It’s natural. And Stiles is more than pack. So Derek got over that surprise pretty quickly.

What he can’t get over is how unsuitable Stiles is. He’s seventeen, jailbait if ever there was one, with said jail run by his very own father. He’s a loud-mouthed, hyperactive high-schooler, whereas Derek never uses a whole sentence when one or two words will do. Stiles is indefatigably cheerful, unlike Derek, who still has to fight large vestiges of suppressed rage in him. But most of all, he’s not a werewolf. He’s a human, making him vulnerable and with Derek’s track record that probably means he will die. People tend to do that around him. He can’t get invested again. If he allows this to happen and Stiles dies, Derek might not survive this time.

But that’s not even the biggest hurdle. Stiles has already told him he doesn’t want this. However much he’s been flirting and seeking out Derek’s company, even kissing him, when the chips are down, he flees. So while Derek is fairly sure Stiles isn’t a homicidal psychopath out to kill everyone near and dear to him, he appears to be just passing the time until Lydia or someone else becomes available. And Derek can’t do anything in half measures. So he will either end up in prison or have his heart broken. It’ll _never_ work. He’ll have to tell Stiles to stay away. He’ll have to find an excuse, so that he won’t end up looking like a ridiculous sap, because he can’t bear the thought of anyone laughing at him.

Derek’s at the house early on Monday morning, working away steadily. It’s keeping him busy while affording him time to think. But he fails to come up with any pretext why Stiles should stay away without giving away the real reason. Ordinarily he would just tell him to get lost with no explanation whatsoever. Cold indifference coupled with intimidation usually works. But that might a) not work on Stiles, who’s more inclined to push and push until he gets an answer that satisfies him and b) he doesn’t want to do that to Stiles because the guy’s only just getting back to normal.

By late morning, he sits on the steps and admits defeat on all fronts. Not only can he not think of an explanation, he also has to acknowledge to himself that what he _really_ wants is for Stiles to somehow convince him that it _can_ work despite his misgivings. Of course, for that, Stiles would have to be interested… and now Derek’s thoughts are starting to go round and round in circles again, weighing all the options, looking at all of Stiles’s behavior, going over every word and every look. Every time he thinks that maybe Stiles does like him, a little, possibly, the practical obstacles seem insurmountable and every time he starts to wonder if there might be a way around those, he comes back to the fact that Stiles is just toying with him because he can. So when he hears Stiles’s jeep in the distance, he’s really no further than he was this morning, or last night, or even Friday night.

Derek gets up off the steps and stands in the sparse shade of the veranda when the jeep draws nearer. He senses Scott’s there before he can see him in the passenger seat and his hackles are raised immediately because nothing about this says social call. Both teens get out of the car at the same time, but Scott stays by the side of it, his feet planted slightly apart, his eyes narrowed as he watches Derek. Dragging his feet a little, Stiles comes over to the house and up the steps.

Derek hasn’t taken his eyes off Scott yet because the werewolf in him doesn’t allow him to ignore a threat. Right this moment, Scott feels very threatening. Stiles takes a position a couple of feet away, then looks pointedly at Scott. Reluctantly, his friend takes out his mp3 player, puts in the earbuds, but doesn’t stop watching them. Derek can hear the loud bass of a song he doesn’t recognize and relaxes slightly. Scott hasn’t come to attack, he’s here to protect. What Derek can’t work out is why either of them might think it necessary.

When he looks at Stiles, his mouth goes dry. Something’s very wrong here. He already knew that from Scott’s behavior, but it’s a different matter altogether to read it in Stiles’s eyes.

“So, there I was, working at the surgery this morning,” Stiles starts casually as if they’re in the middle of a conversation. “And as I was talking to Deaton, we got onto the subject of the parley. Now, I saw no reason not to fill him in, you know, from one emissary to another, just common politeness really, when you think about it. And imagine my surprise when he cleared up a little misconception for me. Can you guess what I’m referring to?”

The offhand tone is in stark contrast to the obvious agitation radiating from him. Derek certainly has a good idea what he’s talking about, but he rather suspects it was a rhetorical question, so he stays silent, his eyes meeting Stiles’s steadily.

“Why didn’t you _tell_ me?” Stiles finally bursts out. “I thought an affiliation just meant some kind of special bond, a friendship or something. Because – stupid me – I actually thought that’s what we had.”

“That’s kind of what it is. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Doesn’t mean anything?” Stiles’s voice is raised now, his anger coming through loud and clear, his whole body agitated, making Scott stir warily. “You claimed me! As your mate! In front of everyone there!” He looks down on the ground, obviously trying to rein in his temper. “And then, like the idiot that I am, I confirmed it.”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Derek repeats evenly. “You’re not a werewolf, you’re not bound by it.”

“But you are!”

Derek shrugs. “It was a ploy to get what we wanted. They needed to think that we had an unbreakable bond between the two packs. It wasn’t personal. You said it yourself, as long as we got what we wanted, it doesn’t matter what happened at the parley.”

Stiles gives him a look of utter disbelief. He looks so crushed that Derek wishes he could take the words back but he can’t think of anything else to say. Surely Stiles understands that nobody expects him to actually stay mated to Derek for life.

“It wasn’t personal?” Stiles asks half-choked.

Derek didn’t mean it like that. Even at the time, he couldn’t imagine he’d feel comfortable claiming an affiliation with anyone other than Stiles. But the truth is that he would have claimed anyone if he thought he could get away with it. Beacon Hills is that important to him. It’s just that he didn’t _mind_ it with Stiles even then, whereas with everyone else he would have hated it. Now, he kind of likes the idea. Or did like it, before Stiles found out. He doesn’t understand what the problem is, it’s not as if Derek would ever claim any rights to him.

“I don’t even want to know how you got away with lying in a room full of alphas. You’re obviously very good at it.” Stiles’s voice is dripping with disdain, then turns cheerless. “What I don’t understand is why you didn’t tell me afterwards. I _trusted_ you. You could have just told me that I miraculously acquired a… mate. I would have gotten over it. I would have accepted that it doesn’t mean anything to you. All you had to do was tell me. I thought that you suggested me as the emissary because you trusted me. Because you thought I’d be good at it. But you just chose me because I’m such a pushover, didn’t you? I let people walk all over me. Lydia, Scott, you. Scott was right, you planned this from the beginning. You haven’t changed at all.”

Derek wants to refute that statement, but Stiles would never believe him now and what difference does it make? The damage is done. He glances over at Scott, who’s still glowering at him, but he doesn’t care. He’s used to people thinking the worst of him. It’s debatable whether anyone can think worse of him than he does himself. He’d much rather Stiles didn’t, but there’s not much he can do about it now.

Stiles is shaking his head in deep disappointment. There‘s that look of betrayal again, as if he expected more of Derek and can’t believe he was wrong. He walks towards the stairs but halts on the first one, half turned away, looking towards the trees. “You know what’s funny? If you had told me what you did, maybe apologized, no, not _apologized_ , just _explained_ , I would have been fine with it. I wouldn’t have minded that every werewolf on the West Coast thinks I’m your mate. I would have been… the thing is, Derek, even if you’d asked me beforehand to pretend to be your mate, I would have done it… for you.”

He descends the rest of the steps and walks quickly back to the jeep. Scott comes forward, pulling his earbuds out with a quick yank on the cable and puts his arm briefly around his friend. Then he shoots Derek one last disgusted glare, before driving Stiles away. Stiles never looks up again.

Derek leans heavily against the wall behind him, feeling the need for support. Well, that solves the problem he’s been contemplating all morning. His hands search for purchase against the wood and when he finds it, he can hear it splinter under his fingers soon after. The shift is involuntary, although he could control it with a little effort, but mainly he doesn’t want to. He’s never before cared so little about who can see him, but at least has the good sense to move into the confines of the house.

When he shifts back later, the room looks more devastated than when he started working on it a month ago.

 

 

Derek has always been resilient. As a child his family, mainly his mother, gave him strength. Later it was his anger, at the world and everyone in it, but also at himself. He was angry all the time. But because he lost a lot of that anger when he healed his sister, his resilience is sorely tested now.

By the time Derek gets home, Cora already knows that Stiles and Scott found out. Apparently she met Allison in town and they had words. Derek imagines an argument conducted in furious whispers so that no one will overhear. You can hardly scream ‘ _your bastard werewolf brother claimed my friend as a mate, so tell him to drop dead’_ in the middle of a shopping mall.

“What did she say?” he asks wearily, not sure if he even wants to know.

“That you’re out of order and that they had to hold Scott back from killing you.”

Derek grabs the orange juice from the fridge and sits down at the table. It would be an incredible feat to hold an alpha back when he’s really riled up. Scott’s come a long way controlling his wolf. He shrugs, feigning nonchalance. “I don’t get it. Stiles was all for doing what’s necessary at the parley and afterwards. He said so. Why is he so upset?”

Cora demonstratively sets an empty glass down in front of him. “Freedom of choice? What did he say?”

“That I should have told him, if not before, then afterwards.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because you know what Scott’s like. If something isn’t his idea or you didn’t run it by him, he hates it.”

“Scott’s an idiot.”

Derek shrugs again, as if that’s a given. But he’s not so sure if it’s still true. Mostly Scott gets things done. Their main problems is that they disapprove of each other’s methods. But while Derek accepts the outcome no matter how Scott gets there, the reverse is definitely not true. Maybe that’s what makes Scott a true alpha, his moral fiber. Scott has lived a sheltered life in many ways – small town, loving mother, good friends – whereas Derek’s life since the fire has been mostly about survival. No wonder they're always clashing. But Scott will calm down. When the next threat hits Beacon Hills, he’ll want to work with Derek again and everything will blow over. It always does. Only, Stiles will never be his friend again. He’ll work with Derek, even turn up at his loft with the others but there’ll never be that easy rapport again.

Cora smacks his arm when she looks up from setting the dinner things out to see Derek take a long drink from the orange carton. “I don’t know what got their pants in a wad either. Who knows with these guys? Especially Stiles. He’s weird at the best of times. It’s not as if it’s real.”

Derek feels like he should defend Stiles, or rather that he _wants_ to defend him. There’s a spike of annoyance at her words that he very rarely feels with Cora. But she wouldn’t understand and he’s too tired to care what anybody thinks anymore.

 

 

Naturally, Peter comes around the next morning while Derek’s tidying up the mess he made yesterday. Some of the floorboards he ripped up are actually reusable, but he needs to get more wood now and more screws and nails.

“I love what you’ve done with the place,” Peter says, inspecting the obvious claw marks on the wood. “You didn’t like the design?”

“What do you want?” Derek asks coldly.

“I heard a little rumor. Apparently you took one for the team at the parley. I _had_ been wondering how you managed to pull it off.”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

Peter chuckles maliciously. “You claimed little Stiles as your mate. I must admit I didn’t see that one coming. But then neither did Stiles, from what I hear. Really, Derek, that’s the best you could come up with? A little drastic, don’t you think?”

“Is there something you wanted?” Derek uses his claws to pull stray nails out of a reclaimed floorboard, looking pointedly at Peter as he does so.

“I’m just trying to look out for my nephew.” Peter’s voice remains mild, with the usual unmistakable hint of mockery. “Whatever possessed you to claim a mate? And Stiles of all people? You know you can’t claim another mate until he dies now. Or has your poor little heart given up on finding true love? Mind you, with the way you’re going, you’d be doing us all a favor.”

Derek picks up a hammer, taps it against the palm of his hand a few times and looks back at Peter. “I suggest you leave.”

Peter holds up his hands in a pacifying gesture. “No need for violence. I’m simply pointing out the obvious.”

“Well, if it’s obvious, it doesn’t need pointing out.”

Peter smiles, making Derek’s temper flare just from seeing the spiteful glint in it. He often wonders why his mother kept her brother around. He’s always been trouble and only got worse over the years. But he’s family and if she could bear having him around, so can Derek. He grabs his leather jacket and hands Peter the hammer as he walks past him. “Knock yourself out.” He needs to get new supplies. Hopefully Peter will have left by the time he gets back.

On his way to the hardware store, Derek stops by the coffee shop. He orders his coffee, trying not to think about what Stiles can do with coffee, but as he’s paying, he can feel his senses come alert. When he turns around, he’s looking straight at Scott, who’s just come in with… Stiles. Scott’s glaring at him, but Derek can’t look away from Stiles, who holds his gaze for a few moments, before he lowers his eyes, pressing his lips together. Then he turns on his heel and leaves the shop.

Derek feels the urge to dash after him, to talk to him and make him listen, to somehow make this right. But he suspects there’s no right for them even without this rift, so he forces himself to walk slowly towards the door instead. Scott is blocking the exit, already holding up one person behind him and not caring in the slightest. When Derek stops in front of him, Scott hisses, “Stay away from him,” under his breath.

“I was here first, Scott. You two came in after me, so it’s not as if I’m stalking him.” As always he’s slightly annoyed with the other werewolf.

“I’m warning you, Derek.”

“Warn away, if you must,” Derek says without concern. What Scott thinks of him is so far down his list of priorities it’s practically dropped off the page.

Scott doesn’t move. The woman behind him has already said ‘ _excuse me_ ’ three times, when she’s gently moved to one side with an apology as Stiles reappears. He squeezes in next to Scott, says, “Let’s get our coffee,” and pulls his reluctant friend up to the counter without giving Derek a single glance.

Derek feigns indifference, holds the door open for the woman who’s been trying to get past Scott and gives her his most charming smile. She seems surprised, tugging a strand of hair behind her ear self-consciously and smiling back. When he walks to his car, he doesn’t look back, trying to disregard the fact that this must have been the first time that Stiles has ignored him.

 

 

It doesn’t get much better after that. Derek would have thought that working on the house all day is safe enough. He’s making only slow progress and he hates every minute of it, but it’s something to do and there’s nobody out here to bother him. It’s the height of summer, so he manages to start early and work late in natural light.

But despite being in the woods for most of the day, he always manages to run into Stiles. Picking up pizza on the way home two days later, Stiles is waiting in the line three places in front of him. Derek contemplates leaving, but feels childish just thinking it. Instead he takes rueful pleasure in watching Stiles play with his phone while waiting and it’s nice to see a small smile on his face at one of the messages. After Stiles has picked up his food, he stops short when, turning around, he spots Derek. Then he averts his eyes and walks out. Derek decides to leave after all. He’s no longer hungry.

The next evening, he picks up Cora outside Jungle because her car is at the garage and Stiles comes tumbling out of the club more than a little worse for wear. Derek is already halfway across the parking lot, when Scott, Kira, Allison and Isaac come out as well, all of them glaring at him as if he’s trying to abduct their friend. Stiles looks at him for a while with an indecipherable expression before Scott puts his arm over his shoulder and pulls him away, flashing his eyes at Derek warningly. As he’s driving Cora home, Derek wonders when gay night clubs have become all the rage and how Stiles managed to get his hands on enough alcohol to be staggering at his age.

Getting gas the following night, there’s Stiles at the next pump, watching him without giving any sign of recognition. He’s alone today, so Derek takes it upon himself to make sure that he gets home safely. He’s more careful not to be seen than he was before the parley. He’s pretty convinced that this time Stiles will make an official complaint if he notices him following.

He groans when he rounds a corner in the supermarket the next morning and almost runs into Stiles’s shopping cart. They stare at each other until Derek grits out, “It’s coincidence, I swear.” Stiles looks down at the food in his cart with thinning lips that could mean annoyance or suppressed amusement. Derek hopes it’s the latter. He moves out of the way to avoid an elderly lady with her cart bumping into him and when he turns back around, Stiles has moved away and is turning into the next aisle. Derek picks up the milk he came for and hurries out of there.

 

 

The strangest thing of all is how Derek’s dreams have changed. When he was around Stiles all the time, he dreamt mainly of sex. Sex with Stiles. _Vivid_ sex with Stiles. As disconcerting as that was, it was also straight forward. His body was obviously reacting to the scent and the proximity and compensating for the lack of real-life sex. He hasn’t attempted any of that since the last time. One night stands are really a last resort for him and dreaming of Stiles in someone’s else bed was the last straw. He’s not that much of an asshole.

But now the dreams have shifted away from almost pornographic activities to strange encounters of a different kind. He almost wishes the sex was back, because now all he does is dream about meeting Stiles in various places, cafés, cinemas, the hardware store. It’s maddeningly innocuous. Sometimes they talk and Stiles moves from being abrasive to friendly during the course of the conversation. Sometimes they go for a coffee or something to eat and everything is like it used to be, with Stiles talking a mile a minute about nothing in particular. And sometimes they just look at each other, usually across a room or a street, both of them expressionless until at the very last moment, just before Derek wakes up, Stiles smiles at him. That’s the worst one. Because as insignificant as it seems, that smile makes Derek wake up with a pounding heart and the most profound feeling of joy. And then he can’t go back to sleep because he hates himself for being so weak and pathetic that a simple smile can mean so much to him.

 

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

 

 

**10.**

He tells himself that everything’s worked out for the best. He’s no longer in danger of trying to initiate something inappropriate, something Stiles doesn’t really want, something Derek will later regret. He knew that there was never any chance of this turning into something and now the decision’s been made for him. He should appreciate his luck. But somehow it doesn’t feel that way. It doesn’t feel like a narrow escape, it feels more like someone sank their teeth into his life and tore a huge chunk out of it, leaving him bleeding out. How did it get this bad this fast?

This is always his problem when he’s attracted to someone. There’s no moderation with him. But his other relationships were more about infatuation and lust, and this is nothing like that, despite the abundance of sexual fantasies he’s been having. This is more like the first time and he actually genuinely likes the person he’s in love with. And suddenly he’s acutely aware that he _is_ in love – with all the pain that usually entails for him. What’s wrong with him that he always unerringly picks the least suitable person imaginable?

Sometimes he catches himself sitting on the steps to the house, remembering. The shell of the house doesn’t hold any memories of his family anymore. Those were burnt away in the fire. Their images are somehow removed from any particular location or time, existing as a separate entity. Otherwise he could never bear being even in the vicinity of the house. But it does contain a myriad of more recent memories. Of aimless chatter and companionable silences, especially out here on the steps. Maybe he should just abandon this project. Cora hasn’t taken any great interest in his plans anyway, which makes him wonder why he’s even bothering.

He perseveres by sheer willpower – and things get a little easier. He’s been a lone wolf for such a long time that it’s familiar, almost comfortable. Every morning he goes to the house, works until late and returns home. He refuses to make any trips to the shops because that always ends up with bumping into Stiles as the universe continues to have fun at his expense. There’s really no other explanation why he sees Stiles taking the trash out three times in one week, when he drives past his house late at night to make sure he's safely ensconced inside. How much trash can two people generate? On each occasion, Stiles either doesn’t see him or pretends he doesn’t.

 

 

About three weeks later, Derek arrives at the house a little later in the morning than he usually does and knows immediately that someone’s been inside during the night. It’s happened before. Sometimes the kids in Beacon Hills dare each other to come out here. Apparently, the house has a reputation for being haunted, which suits him just fine, since it keeps most unwanted visitors away.

But this is different. The smell isn’t human. He approaches the house warily, although his hearing has already told him that he’s alone. Everything looks the same, with all the materials and tools just where he left them, but the werewolf smell is overwhelming. They didn’t even try to be stealthy, it’s everywhere.

He knows it’s neither Scott nor Isaac and it’s definitely not a Hale. There are four distinct scents, one alpha and three betas, a whole pack. It takes him a minute or two to determine what’s bothering him about it, apart from the obvious invasion of his territory. Then he recognizes three of the scents and his simmering fury gives way to urgent worry and fear in an instant.

He takes out his phone and dials Stiles’s number, hearing it ring a few times before it goes to voicemail. He tries again right after disconnecting the call, with the same result. As he gives it a third try, he’s already on his way back to his car. It’s entirely possible that Stiles is simply ignoring his calls, but he wouldn’t know what to say in a voicemail, nor can he be sure that Stiles wouldn’t ignore that either.

On the way into town, he tries to stay calm. There can be any number of reasons why Stiles isn’t answering his phone. It’s still early, so he might even be sleeping. When he gets to the Stilinski house, the jeep isn’t in the drive, neither is the sheriff’s car. He suppresses the urge to let himself in by one of the windows to double-check. Not hearing a heartbeat will have to suffice. It means that there’s no one in, not that there are dead bodies inside. That’s just paranoia. There’s no reason to panic just yet.

After a little hesitation, he calls Scott. There’s no reply there either, but Scott’s even less likely to answer his calls, so Derek gets back into his car and makes his way over to the McCalls. Mrs. McCall’s car isn’t there, but Scott’s bike is parked by the side of the house, so he walks up to the front door. He knows Scott is home, but it takes a long time for the teen to answer. Scott must know it’s Derek, but he only deigns to come downstairs when Derek doesn’t stop banging and it threatens to alert the whole neighborhood. Despite his annoyance, Derek isn’t stupid enough to try and enter an alpha’s home uninvited.

“What do you want?” Scott’s still in pajama bottoms and a crumpled t-shirt, with his hair all over the place. He opens the door no further than his body can cover, obviously determined to prevent him from entering. His whole demeanor radiates hostility.

“Do you know where Stiles is?” Derek was hoping that the teens were together but there’s only one heartbeat and Stiles’s jeep is nowhere to be seen.

“I told you to leave him alone,” Scott says warningly.

“There’s another pack in town,” Derek says hastily because it looks like he’s about to get the door slammed in his face.

“Yeah, I know.” Scott is undeniably smug now.

“You _know_?”

“Yeah, Isaac saw one of them in town. He tried to follow him but the guy drove off.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? When was this?”

“Two days ago. And why would I tell you anything? You’re not exactly forthcoming with information at the best of times. If you don’t want to work together, you’ll have to find these things out by yourself.”

Derek can’t believe his ears. “ _Two days_? Are you crazy? _Where_ is Stiles?” His worry is spiking now, causing Scott to start taking notice at long last. Derek really wishes he could still intimidate Scott, or even hurt him, because right now he’s feeling decidedly bloodthirsty.

“What?” the teen asks defensively. “So there’s another pack in the area. As long as they don’t make trouble and  don’t want to stay, I can’t see the problem. Let’s see if they’re just passing through before we decide to murder them, shall we? They’ve seen Isaac, so they probably just left.”

Derek doubts that Isaac looks intimidating enough to scare anyone away. “They won’t just leave, you idiot.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I _do_. Because it’s not just some random pack that happens to pass through. It’s the Hawkins pack.”

Now Scott is suddenly very alert. “How do you know?”

“They were at the house last night. Hawkins and the two betas he had with him in March, plus a new one. They left their scent all over the place. It was deliberate. A provocation.”

“Shit.” Scott dives back into the house and Derek takes the open door as an invitation to follow him in. Scott has dashed upstairs already but comes back down fairly quickly, tapping the buttons of his phone furiously. “Why am I calling Stiles rather than any of the others?” he asks a little confused, holding the phone up to his ear. “Isn’t Lydia just as vulnerable?”

Derek listens to the ringing and the voicemail message with a sinking heart. That eliminates one of the perfectly reasonable explanations why Stiles might not be answering. He wouldn’t simply ignore a phone call from his best friend.

“Stiles. It’s Scott. Call me back as soon as you get this. It’s important.” He disconnects the call, looking at Derek expectantly.

“Hawkins wants revenge. He probably feels snubbed that he didn’t get his hands on Beacon Hills at the parley. But it’s not you he’s angry with, it’s me. He didn’t roll all over the floor in my house because he couldn’t find another place to stay for the night. He was sending me a message.”

Scott nods. “And Stiles is his first target because he’s the only human in the pack. Easy pickings.”

Geez, the guy is slow. “Hawkins thinks Stiles is my mate, remember? He’s gonna try and strike where it hurts.” Derek can’t believe Scott’s been sulking about this for weeks now and doesn’t even realize the real implications. Which begs the question why he’s so upset about it in the first place – and that’s really not important right now. “Do you have any idea where he might be? He’s not at home.”

“I’ll ask around.” Scott hurries back upstairs, already shedding his shirt to get dressed. Derek can hear him speak to Isaac and Allison, leaving a voicemail for Lydia and finally speaking to Stiles’s father, which is something Derek would neither have thought of, nor considered doing if he had. But Scott has known the sheriff since he was a child and manages to ask questions while maintaining some innocent-sounding cover story fairly convincingly.

“Don’t you have a GPS tracker or something?” he asks impatiently when Scott comes back down, now fully dressed and shaking his head to indicate that nobody seems to know where Stiles is.

“We do, but it’s at Stiles’s house and he’s the only one who knows how to use it.”

This just keeps getting better and better. “Get the others to try a few places, the supermarket, the library, the mall, anywhere they can think of.”

“Where are _you_ going?”

“Back to the house. I’ll see if I can track them from there.”

“I’ll come with you.”

Derek doesn’t argue, just makes an impatient gesture towards the door. In the car, he listens to Scott organizing the others to search for Stiles. He doubts that it will yield any results. Stiles could be anywhere and recently he hasn’t spent much time with his friends, so they might not even know if he’s found new places to go.

Eventually, after one more try to reach Stiles, Scott is finished on his phone. “This is your fault,” he says accusingly. “You’re the one who put him in harm’s way. If anything happens to him, I’ll...”

“Scott,” Derek interrupts, coming to a screeching halt outside the Hale house and running flat out towards it as soon as the car stops.

There’s a figure slumped on the porch and Derek can smell the blood long before he sees it. When he gets there, he gently turns Stiles over, noting his heartbeat with relief before instantly starting to worry that it is too shallow.

Scott’s by his side immediately. “Oh God. Stiles!”

There’s a large bruise on the left side of Stiles’s jaw and one on his right cheekbone, more on the parts of his body not covered by clothes and probably underneath as well. The clothes themselves are slashed and soaked in blood but Derek can’t detect any significant wounds. All he can see are shallow claw marks, inflicted for maximum pain rather than injury. It seems that the bleeding has stopped already.

“Stiles, can you hear me?” Scott’s voice is near panicking.

Stiles doesn’t even moan. His pallor makes Derek mind reel with anxiety and his heart race. Overcoming his reluctance to touch him when he’s injured and in pain, Derek scoops him up very gently and carries him towards the car. Halfway there, Scott overtakes him and opens the door, but Derek can’t find a way to fit Stiles onto the backseat without bumping him too much, so he ends up getting in with him.

Scott shuts the door behind them and gets behind the wheel. There’s a jolt and then another, forcing Derek to hold on to Stiles tightly when Scott stalls the unfamiliar car on the first two tries. He wants to growl at him or maybe something worse, but in the end, he puts a hand on the cursing teenager’s shoulder.

“Focus, Scott,” he says, digging his claws in a little. “You can do this.”

He can feel Scott starting to shift, just enough to let his instincts override his fear and worry, and the car starts moving, finally. Derek would much rather be driving because sitting here, feeling Stiles’s rapid, shallow heartbeat, ragged breathing and his clammy and cold skin is killing him. He’s not good with doing nothing in a crisis. In fact, he tends to act before thinking a lot of the time. But he’s wedged against the door with Stiles’s back to his chest and he can’t even work out where the bleeding’s coming from. He can feel the odd trickle onto him but there must be more than this because he’s showing all the signs of shock.

Derek wriggles around until Stiles is lying down with his head in his lap. He’s almost gray in color now and Derek is reminded that he’s been here before, taking Stiles to the hospital after he’s been injured. How many times can that end well? He can’t help running a gentle hand over Stiles’s face and willing him to hold on.

During the short and very fast drive, Scott manages to call his mother, telling her to expect them in a few minutes. When they pull up in front of the emergency department, Mrs. McCall is already there with one of the doctors, the same one who treated Stiles last time.

“Another mugging?” she asks Derek sardonically.

Derek ignores her and helps place Stiles on a gurney. Then he and Scott follow them into the hospital to a double door, where they’re told in no uncertain terms that they can’t go any further. They do what everyone does in these kinds of situation, they watch through the glass until the gurney disappears into another room and then just keep staring.

When Derek finally turns around, he sees the sheriff hurrying up the corridor. Deciding he’d better clean up a little before facing him, he disappears into the washroom down the corridor. Scott will have a much easier task of dealing with Stilinski than Derek could ever hope for, despite the small thawing in their relations.

Derek manages to wash the blood off his hands and face and wipe off his leather jacket. His shirt is still partly soaked but it’s nearly undetectable on the dark grey and it reminds him how Stiles used to tease him that he’s always wearing dark colors. _Stop it,_ he tells himself. _He’s going to be fine and back to teasing in no time._ When he comes back out, the sheriff’s nowhere to be seen.

Scott pushes him forcefully against the wall. “This is all your fault,” he snarls loudly. “I don’t want you anywhere near him, you hear me? Just go. And don’t come back.”

Derek shoves Scott off and snarls back. “My fault? If you’d told me what’s going on two days ago, this wouldn’t have happened. I would’ve made sure he’s okay.”

“You wouldn’t have to if you hadn’t put a target on his back in the first place.”

“And I wouldn’t have had to do that if you hadn’t…”

“Boys!” comes the stern voice of Melissa McCall from behind them. “Lower your voices. This is not the place and none of this will help Stiles right now.”

They both whirl around to her and she looks equally annoyed with both of them. “Stiles is going into surgery in a few minutes. He’s lost some blood but the wounds aren’t deep enough to account for his condition, so we’re suspecting internal injuries. We’ll know more in a few hours.”

“Can I see him, Mom?”

“No, you most certainly cannot. His father’s with him. Go and wait in the waiting room. And you go home and get changed, Derek. You can be back before he gets out of surgery and there’s nothing you can do for him until then.”

“Don’t bother coming back,” Scott growls at him.

“Scott McCall, that’s quite enough of that! Derek has as much right to be here as you have. Now go to the waiting room and try not to turn it into High School Central this time. Tell your friends to wait for news _at home_.” She looks at her son until he slinks off in the direction of the waiting room, then she turns to Derek. “I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here, but if I find out that you did this or had anything to do with this or hurt Stiles in any way, I will make sure that the sheriff knows about it. Are we clear?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He turns towards the exit to follow her suggestions, but pauses briefly. “Thank you, Mrs. McCall.”

She smiles a little in return, before hurrying off in the opposite direction.

 

  

Derek arrives back at the hospital an hour later. He’s showered and changed, relieved to get rid of the smell of Stiles’s blood, which was driving him insane. He’s glad to see Scott still pacing in the waiting room because that means no news and no news means no bad news either. Kira is with him, which should calm him down a little. To avoid any more aggravation, Derek decides to linger a little way down the corridor. He gets himself some coffee from the vending machine and just leans against the wall, waiting for news. Predictably, the coffee is truly awful.

When he sees Mrs. McCall entering the waiting room, he shamelessly listens in on their conversation. She tells Scott that they had to remove a ruptured spleen, but that Stiles is out of surgery and in recovery. It’ll be a couple of hours before he comes out. Her voice is completely honest, with no hint of just saying things to spare her son’s feelings. Derek tries not to sag with relief.

After removing himself further down the corridor, he loiters for another two or three hours. He doesn’t want to run the risk of another argument with Scott. He’s worried enough about Stiles, so dealing with Scott’s misdirected feelings right now would probably send him into a very violent tailspin. He gets that Scott is worried and that he’s lost without his best friend. Stiles has always been Scott’s rock, but he is so much more to Derek nowadays, even if it is one-sided and no one knows about it.

Eventually, he takes a seat in one of the side corridors, not paying much attention to the people around him until someone in blue scrubs and sensible shoes stops right in front of him. He looks up to see Mrs. McCall, smiling a weak and very tired smile. “Stiles is in his room now. The surgery went well. He’ll be fine. You can go and see him, but I don’t think he’s properly awake yet. His father and Scott are with him.”

She tells him the room number and he thanks her politely. He can’t work out why she’s so accommodating. It makes him a little suspicious, but it also gets him what he wants, so he doesn’t question it too closely.

Stiles’s room is on the second floor. Looking through the open door, Derek just gets the barest glimpse of him looking pale and small in the bed. He knows in that moment that he will spend the rest of his life protecting him, whether Stiles appreciates it or not.

Stilinski is sitting by his son’s bedside, holding his hand and doesn’t seem to notice much else, but Scott, who’s taken position on the other side, gets up immediately to stop Derek from entering. Derek retreats more from feeling that he has no right to intrude on the family moment than from anything Scott is doing. He can protect from out here as well as he can from within the room. Maybe later there’ll be a chance to speak to Stiles. Scott comes out into the corridor, planting himself in front of Derek and effectively blocking Stiles from view.

“I told you to leave.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“I can make you.”

“Not here, you can’t. You’ll be thrown out.”

“This is your fault. You should be too ashamed to even be here. It’s not just this, it’s all you’ve done over the last few weeks. Ever since we got back from that weekend.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Derek is willing to admit that it was his fault that Stiles got hurt, but he has no idea what else Scott’s talking about. Stiles seemed much more himself after the parley – until he found out what Derek had done.

“Stiles has been all strange and withdrawn since we came back. He’s trying to hide it, but he’s not right.”

“Are you kidding me? Stiles has been like that for _months_ now and you didn’t even notice. You’re so wrapped up in your own stuff that you don’t even see him. And when you do, you look to blame someone else. How about asking yourself what you did to him? Because it damned sure wasn’t me. He and I were perfectly fine until the day he spoke to Deaton.”

Okay, that might not be the complete truth but it’s close enough for this situation. Scott obviously doesn’t know what happened between Derek and Stiles and he doesn’t need to know. If Stiles wanted to share any of that with his best friend, he would have told him.

“I didn’t…” Scott starts but he’s interrupted by Stilinski, who’s come out of the room.

“If you two are quite finished squabbling over my son, he could actually get some rest and get better. And once he’s out of the woods, I want an explanation who did this to him. From both of you.”

Derek and Scott look a little sheepishly at the sheriff. Derek is fully prepared to take responsibility for this. This _is_ his fault. But more than anything, he wants a chance to tell Stiles in person how sorry he is. It’s going to be difficult enough with Scott standing guard, but impossible to achieve if he alienates Stilinski as well, so he won’t own up to anything until he’s spoken to Stiles.

“Dad…”

Scott and Derek both move towards the room at the sound, but Stilinski beats them to it. Stiles is awake but looks exhausted, the bruises on his face and exposed limbs an even darker color now. His father moves to the side of the bed and takes his hand. “How are you, son?”

“I’m okay.” Stiles looks at the drip going into his arm. “Industrial strength pain killers. You really can’t beat the good stuff.” His voice sounds rough but he smiles reassuringly at his father. “I’ll be fine, Dad.”

“Hey, buddy,” Scott says, moving into the room and leaving Derek lingering by the door.

“Hey,” Stiles says as if they’re simply meeting up before school. Then he closes his eyes for a few moments and just as it looks like he’s fallen back asleep, he opens them again.

“I’m here,” Scott says softly when their eyes meet.

“I know,” Stiles says a little weakly. “I wanna speak to Derek.”

 

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

 

 

**11.**

“No way,” Scott bursts out instantly.

“Scott.” The sheriff doesn’t have to say more than that to silence the teen. Then he looks at Derek who’s still hovering in the doorway. “Your promise still holds?”

“Yes, sir. No harm.”

Scott looks beseechingly at Stiles to entice him to change his mind and Derek doubts any of them are ever going to see a more impressive pout. But his friend is unmoved. “I want to speak to Derek. In private.” Everyone in the room understands that the significant look he gives Scott is a demand not to use his werewolf hearing.

Derek moves a little into the room to let the other two pass, before he shuts the door behind them. Through the glass window Scott’s still glowering at him from the other side of the corridor, which should be satisfying, but Derek feels anything but smug right now. And then he no longer has an excuse to delay the inevitable and turns around. Stiles meets his gaze steadily, nodding towards the chair his father’s just vacated. When Derek has taken a seat, Stiles is still watching him intently for a while, making Derek itch to look or even walk away but he’s not that much of a coward. He has to face the music and as long as he can get his apology out, this will be worth it. There have been too many occasions in his life, when he didn’t get that chance.

“I’ll be fine,” is the first thing Stiles says. “They hurt me, but I’ll be fine. And I know they said it was because of you, but I want you to listen to me very closely: it was _not_ your fault. You couldn’t have predicted this. They’re to blame, not you. You know that, right?”

Derek just stares. Stiles must know that he can’t agree to that. Eventually he says, “I am sorry.”

“I know that and it’s okay to wish things had turned out differently. But don’t go blaming yourself. They hurt me before, remember? And that was definitely unprovoked. They had no right to do this – to me _or_ you. But it was them, not you. I won’t accept any guilt from you. No guilt allowed, okay?”

Derek lowers his eyes and remains silent.

Stiles sighs. “Tell me what you promised my dad.”

This one’s easy, if a little embarrassing. “That no harm will come to you through me or from anyone else while I’m with you… and that I have no unsavory intentions towards you.”

“ _Unsavory_?” Stiles’s snort is followed immediately by a sharp intake of breath. “Ouch, that hurts. I guess there’s really some truth in that good old _only when I laugh_ cliché. Did you really say _unsavory_ to my dad?”

Derek shrugs. It does sound stupid when Stiles says it like that.

“And is it still true?”

“No harm, I promise.” Derek feels more solemn now than when he swore the same oath to the sheriff a couple of months ago.

Stiles smirks and for the first time since he’s woken up, he looks his usual impish self. “And does the _unsavory_ part still hold as well?”

Derek presses his lips together, while Stiles just raises his eyebrows, still grinning. He can’t lie to him, much as he wants to, not when Stiles is lying in this bed because of him. “I _think_ it still holds. Inclination is not the same as intention – or action.”

Stiles grins even wider. “Woohoo, listen to you being all enigmatic and evasive. Very impressive.”

Derek glares because he’s not ready to be teased again just yet and he just admitted to this teenager what he can barely admit to himself. At least Stiles knows now that he doesn’t have to worry about what Derek’s going to do.

“I need you to make a promise to _me_.” Stiles’s energy deflates with alarming suddenness as if trying to hold a conversation was a little too much too soon.

“What promise?” Derek knows it’s nearly impossible that he’ll refuse but he’s not stupid enough to make a promise without even asking.

“Promise me that you’ll protect me while I’m in here. I feel safe with you. I want you to stay here with me. Until I’m better. I want to see you in that chair every time I wake up. Okay?”

This should be one of the easiest things he’s ever promised because right now it’s all he wants. But in a sense, it’s simply _too_ easy. He mistrusts any and all things that come to him without too much effort. “But... ”

Stiles’s eyes are drooping now. “Promise me.”

“I do. I promise. I’ll be here. But what about your dad? And Scott?”

“Scott needs to learn… ” His voice is starting to slur a little before trailing off.

Derek won’t argue with that, whatever it’s referring to. Stiles has his eyes closed now, but his hand is moving across the sheet aimlessly so Derek takes hold of it. It’s instinctive. He wants to stop the movement so Stiles can calm down and get some rest but subsequently finds his hand held tight. When he looks up, Stiles appears to be asleep but there’s a smile on his lips.

 

 

Over the next few days Derek’s feelings are evenly divided. On the one hand, he’s grateful on many levels that he can keep an eye on Stiles, even though most of the time it’s unnecessary because both Scott and Stilinski are around. The only time they’re alone in the room is at night. The nurses have provided a cot, which he thinks is courtesy of getting preferential treatment from Mrs. McCall. She is friendly enough to Derek, but it’s obvious that she’d simply do anything for Stiles. Whenever she comes in, she’s in full mothering mode, which seems to calm and sadden Stiles in equal measures, depending on what mood he’s in. Despite having a place to lie down, Derek can’t sleep with all the activity around him, so he watches Stiles instead. By now he could trace the pattern of moles on his face with his eyes closed.

On the other hand, he realizes that if he’s in here, he can’t be out there hunting the Hawkins pack. And Scott’s not doing it either because he’s too concerned about Derek being around Stiles. So Scott’s brilliant idea is to send Isaac out to do the scouting. Luckily, he has Allison with him, so in all likelihood, he won’t get hurt again. After two days, he reports that the other pack seems to have left the area. While Derek breathes a silent sigh of relief knowing they won’t cause any further trouble in his territory, he now feels even more confined because all he can think about is chasing them down before they get too far. But he’s made a promise and if there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s keeping his promises. He suspects Stiles had an ulterior motive making him do this all along. For some reason, he doesn’t want Derek to go hunting and has effectively taken control of Derek’s actions without even having to be conscious to do it.

During the first two days, Stiles sleeps on and off. He has short conversations with his visitors, who arrive in a steady stream. It’s good to see him interact with them. Getting showered with their concern and affection seems to bring out the old Stiles, whose default setting is determined cheerfulness. They don’t seem to notice how tired he is behind his smile. Sometimes Derek just wants to roar at them to leave, so that Stiles can get his rest. Or maybe he just wants to be alone with him while he can. Luckily Mrs. McCall is pretty stringent about visiting hours for anyone other than Derek and the sheriff.

Derek simply watches and waits, enduring the hostile looks Stiles’s friends give him with equanimity. They’re teenagers, why should he care what they think? Sometimes he listens in on Scott’s conversations with them, which the teen holds halfway down the corridor, as if that makes any difference. They consist mostly of complaints about Derek’s presence that Scott has stopped voicing to Stiles, who ignores him completely every time he brings it up.

On the third day, Stilinski goes back to work, making for a tense atmosphere when Stiles is asleep. Fortunately, his periods of wakefulness are longer now.

“Why are you still here?” he asks, shortly after he wakes up late in the morning. It sounds more weary than plaintive, but there’s definitely a touch of bitterness in there.

Derek is in the process of helping him sit up, putting the top of the bed into the upright position and even fluffing his pillow. He’s bored out of his mind and helping Stiles is his only occupation, apart from a couple of books Cora brought him with his change of clothes. He leans back a little to be able to look into his face and remind him that he was the one who extracted the promise to stay, when he realizes that Stiles isn’t talking to him – he’s looking at Scott.

“Where else would I be?” Scott seems confused, even a little put out.

“At home. With Kira. Doing stuff with Isaac. Or Allison. I don’t know. There’s no need for both of you to be here, is there?”

“Quite.” Scott glowers at Derek. “Why on earth did you ask Derek to stay?”

Derek looks at Stiles for some sign that he should give them some privacy. Not finding any, he moves backwards to the chair behind him and sits down, giving Scott a half-smile, which just seems to confuse him more. This should be interesting.

“Because I want him here. I feel safe with him.”

“And you don’t feel safe with _me_? I should be the one protecting you. I _have_ been protecting you. Only, my mom kicks _me_ out every night and lets _him_ stay. That’s not fair.”

“Why isn’t it fair, Scott?” Stiles asks in a deceptively mild voice.

“Because I’m your best friend. And he’s... I don’t even know what he is. It’s his fault you’re here in the first place. He’s nothing but trouble. I’d kick his ass for you if he wasn’t hiding out in here.” Scott’s still glaring at Derek until the lack of a response makes him look at his friend.

Stiles seems heartbreakingly sad now. He’s pressing his lips together and Derek’s afraid he might cry. He may just have to do some serious damage to Scott if that happens.

But Stiles’s voice is firm when he finally speaks. “And that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it? You’re not _listening_. I told you I want Derek here but you’ve taken it upon yourself to look after me. What gives you the right to decide this for me? You make all your decisions without asking nowadays. Remember when I was always the one with the plan? When is the last time you paid attention to one of them? You don’t even listen to my ideas anymore, never mind following them.”

“I _do_ listen to you. I _always_ listen.”

“You would have to be around for that, wouldn’t you? And you’re not. You spend more time with your _ex_ -girlfriend or with Isaac than you do with me. Because that’s pack business, isn’t it? And since I’m just plain old me and not anything supernatural or someone who hunts supernatural beings, I no longer have anything interesting to say, apparently. I spent a whole month this summer at the house with Derek and in all that time, it only once interfered with something you wanted to do with me. I can live my own life, man, if that’s what you want, but don’t come in here, just because I’m sick and pretend things are still how they were before you became an alpha. You’re not _my_ alpha.”

Derek wonders briefly if becoming an alpha turns everyone into an insufferable asshole, but he’s too focused on Stiles’s anguish to care about anything other than wanting it to stop.

“But... but… you know I love you, man. You’re my best friend. You’re the brother I never had.”

“I know you love me, Scott. You just don’t respect me anymore. And you no longer need me. I always come last with you now and everybody else is oh so important. Nowadays you just want me to fall in with your plans. But not everything is about you and what you are now. Some of us go through stuff as well and it might not be as interesting and world-shattering as becoming a werewolf, but to me it’s pretty important – _very_ important. And if you’re not around to see it, then don’t assume you know me still. I make my own decisions. I’m not your beta. I’m your friend and friends need to be equal. I’m not your equal anymore. At least, I don’t feel it from you. ”

“But...” Scott looks so confused and hurt that even Derek feels a small amount of pity for him. Or _not_ , because his next words are, “But Derek treats you as an equal? That’s ridiculous. He tries to intimidate you all the time. He throws you into walls and he manipulates you. He’s better than I am? We’ve known each other since we were kids, Stiles. He’s the one who used you at the parley. You haven’t spoken to him in weeks.”

“And there you go again. I couldn’t possibly be smart enough not to be manipulated, could I? This is _my_ decision. I want him here and you can’t accept that. Derek and I are friends, but you wouldn’t know about that because you’re too wrapped up in Kira and Allison and being an alpha and god only knows what else to pay attention to me, your best friend, your supposed brother. And you don’t have the slightest idea why I was upset with Derek. I’m not even sure if you know why _you’re_ upset with him. For the past six months at least, you haven’t given a damn about me and I suspect the only reason you hate Derek is because I like him. You hate that I’ve moved on the same way you have. You only care about me again because I stopped running after you all the time.”

“But…” Scott looks crushed. “Am I really that bad?”

Inwardly, Derek is cheering Stiles on to say yes, to tell Scott once and for all that he’s turned into a petty, self-righteous little jerk with delusions of grandeur who’s wrapped up in himself tighter than a straight jacket. But he knows Stiles won’t do that. Stiles loves Scott and in his heart he can’t hurt him even if he deserves it because what he really wants is for things to be the way they were. “No, you’re not. You just stopped listening. I’ve been lying here for two days now and every time I wake up, I have to deal with you making snide remarks about Derek. And trying to get all our friends onto your side. It’s as if you can’t bear that I’m friends with someone else. All this time you knew that I asked Derek to stay. Before you were an alpha, that would have been enough for you. I need it to be enough.” His voice shakes a little now and Derek just wants to _do_ something, anything.

“It is,” Scott says emphatically. Then he lowers his head and presses his lips together. After a long while, he looks at Stiles from under his eyelashes. “It will be enough again, I swear. And I want us to get back to being best friends again. That’s why I’m here. When we were looking for you, I realized that I hardly saw you in the last few weeks. That’s gonna change, I promise.”

Stiles’s smile is radiant and Derek hopes for both their sakes that Scott’s promises are as good as his own. He’s been suspecting for a while now that it’s Scott who’s at the root of Stiles’s problem. He itches to give Scott a few non-verbal pointers but he’s sure that wouldn’t go down well. However hard it is for him to keep his protective instincts in check, Stiles needs to sort this one out on his own.

Stiles is leaning back into his pillow and closes his eyes. The short argument seems to have exhausted him.

“I’ll let you get some sleep,” Scott says a little sheepishly. “I’ll be back later on.” It’s the first time he’s offered to leave the room without his mother forcing him to when visiting hours are over. He’s either feeling too awkward to stick around after their confrontation or he’s trying to do what Stiles asked him to.

“Okay,” Stiles murmurs, opening his eyes and smiling at him. Derek can practically feel their friendship shifting a bit closer to home.

After Scott’s left, Stiles seems to be falling asleep still sitting up. Derek’s debating if he should recline the bed and risk waking him up or let him sleep in what looks like a very uncomfortable position, when Stiles speaks without opening his eyes. “Thank you.”

“For what?” He can’t remember saying a single word during the whole episode.

“For not coming to my rescue.”

“I didn’t have to. You kicked ass all on your own.”

Stiles chuckles a little before he falls asleep.

 

 

The IV drip has been removed, the shallow cuts all over Stiles’s body have closed up and the bruises are starting to look less angry. He’s undoubtedly getting better. His friends have covered the only table in the room with treats, obviously fearing that he might not get sufficiently fed or that the hospital food is so bad, that consumption of it must be avoided at all cost. They needn’t worry. When Stiles is awake, he shovels hospital food and any and all other available nutritional sources into his mouth indiscriminately. It’s the best indicator of his rapid recovery.

That night Derek feels Stiles come awake long after everyone else has gone home. He always knows when Stiles is asleep, awake or in the process of reaching either state by the way he gets restless or his breathing changes. Looking over to the bed, he meets his eyes and Stiles smiles at him. He does that a lot, as if amongst all the people coming in and out of his room, he and Derek are the only ones who don’t need any words. Or maybe he senses how uncomfortable Derek is when the small room is crowded with people and therefore allows him to fade into the background. He pretends he’s just here as a bodyguard but he knows nobody is convinced by that.

“Do you need anything?” Derek’s lying on his cot with his hands behind his head.

“No, just enjoying the view.”

Derek snorts. Stiles is definitely getting back to normal and that makes Derek predisposed to forgive even the flirting. He did miss it, if he’s honest. The room is darkened, but the corridor outside is brightly lit and will remain so all night. It allows him to make out the sparkle in his eyes.

“Come here,” Stiles says simply.

Derek gets up immediately, helps Stiles to sit up and then stands a little awkwardly next to his bed. When Stiles pats the space on the mattress, Derek perches gingerly next to his hip. He feels even more discomfited when Stiles’s hand lands on his thigh and stays there. After looking at it for a long time, hoping that will be enough to make him withdraw, he realizes that’s not going to happen and looks up. Stiles’s smile looks amused.

“Are you going to keep pretending nothing’s going on?”

“Stiles,” Derek sighs. He probably won’t get away with a denial but what is the point of talking about something so hopeless? He has to admit, though, that the soft look in Stiles’s eyes is making his stomach flutter. But inclination is _not_ intention and definitely not action. “I can’t.”

Stiles moves his hand up and down Derek’s leg now. It doesn’t feel particularly lascivious but it’s much too close for comfort, so Derek puts his own hand on top of it to stop it, and finds himself holding hands with Stiles for the second time in three days. Somehow he can’t bring himself to let go.

“You’ve already admitted to an inclination – don’t think I was too out of it to remember that – does that mean that you want to but for some reason you think you shouldn’t? I mean you want to, right?”

“You know I do.” He can go that far if no further. There must be something seriously wrong with him that he’s putting himself through this. Why doesn’t he just lie because Stiles will use this knowledge to make his life hell without ever meaning to by just not letting it go…

“How _much_ do you want to?”

…exactly like _that_. He decides to glare at him as the only response. Because the honest answer is, that he wants to do things to Stiles that will drive him insane if he thinks too much about them. And if he has to talk about them, he’s not sure if he can hold back. Derek looks down at their hands, which are now interlaced somehow, with Stiles’s thumb stroking over his skin.

When Derek doesn’t say anything, Stiles dives into one of his babbling monologues that should be annoying but are somehow just endearing. “Because I want to. Very much so. So much so I can’t even tell you how much. I’ve been wanting it for a while now, quite a while actually, but I guess you know that already because of all the kissing and so on. Well, maybe _all_ the kissing is overstating it a bit because there were only two but, you know, it’s something, something I would like more of. Amongst other things. I mean there’s a lot of things I want, not just in general, but with you in particular. And there’s really no reason not to.”

“There are plenty of reasons, Stiles, and you know it. I don’t even know why you would want to.” He didn’t mean to say that. It’s a pathetic attempt to get Stiles to make him feel better without having to face the consequences.

“You see me,” Stiles says solemnly and it’s not what Derek expected. “You see all of me, not just my happy face. And not just my crazy impulses either. I feel like I can be myself with you, no matter how I feel. And you believe in me. You are the one who treats me as an equal.”

Derek snorts. “Really? Because if it was up to me, I would _always_ leave you behind when the pack goes out.”

“I know I can’t be in the middle of a werewolf fight. I’d be mincemeat in no time, despite my trusted bat. That’s not what I’m talking about. You don’t automatically assume I have nothing to contribute because I’m just human. You listen to me, to my crazy ideas and theories. It seems like you don’t pay attention to a word I’m saying but in the end it always turns out that you did. And you took me to the parley. I know Scott thinks that you had nefarious motives all along, like you planned everything in minute detail right from the beginning but I know you’re really not that smart.”

“Hey!” Derek interjects but has to smile at Stiles’s broad grin. Then he says honestly, “Right now I wish I hadn’t taken you.”

“This was not your fault, Derek. I know what you did at the parley was the only way. And it worked, so it’s all good. We’re friends, right? Slightly idiotic friends who don’t actually ever talk to each other but somehow get the point across anyway. You and I have a lot in common.”

Derek raises an eyebrow in disbelief.

“Will you at least acknowledge that we’re friends?”

“Okay.”

“More than friends? Because last time I checked, I don’t kiss any of my other friends. And they don’t look at me the way you do. Especially when I’m drinking coffee.”

Derek blushes. He can’t even remember the last time that happened. Luckily it’s too dark for Stiles to see and take advantage of, but he can’t help blurting out, “You noticed?”

“Oh, I noticed alright. Not at first, but it was pretty obvious after a while. You’re really not as furtive as you’d like to think. Didn’t you wonder why I brought coffee to the house every single day? Because that would mean that you really _are_ that thick. I thought maybe you’re just playing things close to your chest, which, by the way, I wouldn’t mind seeing a lot more of. Especially naked. I know I should probably hide myself in shame when the clothes start coming off but I prefer to be too focused on you for that. And you know, clothes coming off doesn’t happen nearly often enough for my liking.”

“Stiles, stop,” Derek says urgently because this is bringing out all sorts of reactions in him that he’s been suppressing for way too long. He tries to get up, but Stiles is holding on to his hand almost desperately and he doesn’t want to use force. “I can’t do this. We can’t do this. Look at you. You got hurt because of me. You could have died.”

“I could have died any number of times over the last couple of years and none were your fault or your responsibility. Neither is this.”

“But this happened because people are trying to hurt me through you.”

“So you admit that you get hurt when I do?”

Derek takes a steadying breath, almost a sigh. “You know I do.”

“Right. Then I insist that you do something about it. The damage is already done and it can’t be undone. You claimed me and now it’s your responsibility to make sure I’m alright. I insist on 24 hour protection or as close to it as is humanly possible or, in your case, as close to it as is werewolfly possible. If someone wants to get at you through me, they’ll do it no matter whether they just _think_ we’re together or we actually _are_. You need to protect me. And you and I know that you’ll do that anyway, so we might as well enjoy it while you’re at it.”

Derek’s mouth is dry. That’s actually a very good point. If he wants to protect Stiles, being up close and personal might conceivably reduce the danger he’s in. Hawkins wouldn’t have been able to snatch him if Derek had been around. And Stiles is doing exactly what Derek wanted him to do the last time he thought about turning Stiles away, which is refute his arguments and persuade him that it _can_ work. He’s very persuasive, too. Derek tries not to smile when he says, “Enjoy it how?”

Stiles’s eyes grow wide. “Are you serious? You know, I was joking when I implied you’re dumb, but now I’m not so sure. Come here.”

Derek knows he probably shouldn’t, but he leans forward anyway because he’s tired of fighting this. Stiles smiles and kisses him, long and deep, and Derek can practically feel himself losing his grip on all his objections. He doesn’t want this to ever end and only reluctantly moves back an inch when it does. Stiles doesn’t need to be a werewolf to hear his heart jack-hammering.

“I want more of that,” Stiles says softly. “Preferably all day every day. I want talking and smiling and laughing together. And I want serious conversation, where you actually say things, proper things, meaningful things. And I want sex in every way possible. Does that sound enjoyable to you?”

“Uhm, very. But I promised your father not to do that.”

Stiles chuckles. “Actually, you promised my dad not to do anything _unsavory_ , and don’t think I will ever, _ever_ let you live that one down. Rest assured that none of what we’ll do will ever qualify as unsavory, because I’m in love with you and you can’t live without me. And we’re practically married already, the werewolf way, so that should work in your favor with my dad. But really, are you telling me that you’re seriously going to ask my dad for permission? Because then I’ll have to take everything back about being equals. I make my own decisions. Can you please, please make yours? Like, right now?”

Derek knows he will never match Stiles with words, so he just leans forward and kisses him again. This time he does it properly, tilting his head to the right angle with both hands, taking control and releasing him only when _he_ wants to.

“If you feel like this, then why were you so upset that I claimed you as my mate?”

“Because I wasn’t sure that _you_ feel like this. You give out very confusing signals, you know. Half the time I thought you were just seconds removed from ripping my clothes off, the other half I thought you just felt sorry for me for some reason. I was pretty upset about the rest of my life, so you turning out to be another Lydia wasn’t such a stretch. I mean, you’re the hottest guy in town, I thought you were well out of my league as well. And when I talked to Deaton, I wasn’t upset that you _claimed_ me, I was upset that you didn’t _mean_ it.”

“Then why did you freak out every time I said or did something in return?”

“Because you didn’t. I mean, yes, you did. But it’s not what I want. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all on board with the casual sex thing in general. Until recently I would have taken anyone up on it if they offered to devirginize me. Obviously not literally anyone, but you know what I mean. But I can’t do that with you. With you I want more. A lot more.” His eyes are almost black in the near darkness. The look he gives Derek is a mixture of his usual brash cockiness and a pleading vulnerability which fascinates Derek and has done for months now.

“That’s good because there’s a lot more to being mated than just claiming, you know.”

“Does it involve urinating on me?”

“What? _No_.” Derek shudders a little in disgust. He guesses he'll have to get used to having verbal volleys thrown at him that only Stiles would think of in the first place, never mind actually articulate them once he has.

“Does it involve sex?”

“Lots.”

Stiles groans. “You know, we really have to have some ground rules about what constitutes acceptable teasing. I don’t think it’s fair for you to say something like that when I’m in a hospital bed and won’t be able to make you show me what exactly you mean for days. That’s really not something you should be allowed to do. I’m a teenager after all and I’m not exactly known for my patience and restraint under any circumstances.”

Derek shrugs. “You brought it up.”

“Just so you know, big guy, I’m asking all my friends to bring in coffee from now on.” He grins at Derek’s involuntary intake of breath. “But I may forgive you if you make it up to me in the meantime with lots of making-out.”

Derek smiles a little. He can do that.

 

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

 

 

 

**12.**

The sheriff looks up from his food when Derek slips into the seat opposite him in the booth. The diner is almost deserted at this time of day and the waitress is leaning on the counter, lazily chatting with the only other customer. She looks like she’s posing no danger of interrupting their conversation by actually doing some waitressing any time soon. That suits Derek just fine. He looks at the plate in front of the sheriff, which is piled high with greasy diner food, and tries not to show his distaste. When he looks up, the other man shrugs a little guiltily.

“Don’t tell Stiles,” Stilinski says, half-resigned already, as if he believes it’s inevitable that he’ll be found out. With a son like Stiles, that’s probably a valid assumption.

“Not a word.”

“Thanks. He worries too much. This isn’t gonna kill me.”

Derek thinks that it might but keeps that to himself. Stiles’s issues with his dad are none of his business. He can understand wanting to protect the ones you love, but he’s not getting in the middle of that. He’s here to solve his own issues with the man. “I’m a great believer in freedom of choice. How about you?”

“Why do I get the impression we’re not really talking about food choices here?”

“Because you’re in law enforcement and know how to read between the lines.”

Stilinski looks unimpressed with the flattering statement. He puts his knife and fork down and looks at him. “Is this going to spoil my appetite?”

“Most likely.” Derek pauses because he doesn’t quite know how to begin. He still can’t believe that he’s got himself into a situation where the parent of the person he’s with needs to be taken into account in his decision making.

 

_Stiles kisses like he does everything else, as if it’s vitally important and can’t be delayed a second longer. His arms are around Derek’s neck, crossed behind his head and he’s using them to try and pull himself up enough to compensate for their slight height difference. Their tongues are stroking against each other urgently and their bodies are so flush together that far too little friction is generated. Derek can smell the desperate arousal that’s way too close to climaxing already, considering the brat walked in the door not two minutes ago. Having this effect on Stiles never fails to turn Derek on, putting considerable strain on his control._

_Derek can safely say he never had this much sex with anyone he’s ever been with. He doesn’t mind a slow build-up, waiting for the right moment to initiate things, but with Stiles there don’t seem to be any wrong moments, ever. He’s a teenager and his hormones seem to be hell-bent on making Derek’s day, every day. Stiles is already fumbling with Derek’s belt buckle before they’ve even moved away from the door, but Derek holds him back and moves backwards towards the bed, pulling Stiles by both wrists._

_“How was school, honey?” he asks in a facetious imitation of domestic bliss._

_“School was fine. Scott brought me a home-baked muffin today. He tried to make out he made it himself. It was really sweet. I may have to milk his guilty conscience for a little while longer yet because, you know,_ muffins _. Lydia had a screaming fit when Danny spilled his drink on her skirt and since she’s a banshee, I mean that quite literally. Coach still thinks I’m not fit for practice yet, so I got out of that. And I got an A in Chemistry. And you don’t care the slightest little bit about school. You just want to remind me that I’m still in high school and you’re, oh, so old and that we need to go slow. But may_ I _remind you that you promised me we could do something more today? I intend to hold you to that.”_

_Derek turns at the last minute, pushing Stiles down to sit on the bed when his legs hit the edge of it. It proves rather counterproductive because now Stiles is in the perfect position to open Derek’s jeans. He yanks them down to his thighs as if he’s afraid Derek may stop him again and pulls down his underwear, allowing Derek’s cock to spring free. Derek’s painfully hard, like he almost always is when he’s alone with Stiles and it’s getting increasingly difficult to not just take what is so freely offered._

 

Derek would like to delay the inevitable. For one thing, it might turn out to be the height of stupidity to point the sheriff of all people in the right direction. That could seriously backfire. But he’s more concerned about how vulnerable and pathetic this will make him appear. He’s not used to saying things out loud. Then he decides to try what Stiles would call the ‘enigmatic and evasive’ route. “Remember when I made you that promise in your office?”

“In June? Before you all went away for that weekend?”

“Yeah, that one.”

Now Stilinski is giving him his undivided attention. And it’s not pleasant. He looks suspicious and wary and ready to react to the slightest provocation. No great surprise there. It’s his son they’re talking about, after all. Finally he makes a slightly impatient hand gesture for Derek to continue.

“I need to modify some of it.”

“Because you lied?”

“Because circumstances have changed.”

Stilinski nods slowly. “I take it, it’s not the no harm part you want to modify? Because I know how to get hold of wolfsbane bullets now.” There isn’t the tiniest hint that he might be joking in his voice or demeanor.

“No, that part will always stand. I can promise you that. It’s the other part I need to change.”

“I see. Are you asking me?”

“No. Telling.” Stiles would be rightfully furious if he asked his father for permission. Derek agrees that the decision should be Stiles’s alone, even at his age. But there’s the law to consider, never more so than in this case, and they need to know where they stand. Ordinarily, Derek would leave this task to Stiles – happily so – but he doesn’t want the sheriff to rely on his word when it no longer applies.

“And Stiles...?”

“Knows I’m here and in general is... more confident and certain what he wants than I will ever be. Everything’s up to him. I can promise you that, too. I can wait. Not sure if he can.”

 

_“I wanna suck you off.” Stiles looks up at him with a knowing smirk. He’s obviously decided that bringing out the big guns is in order. By now he must know how much Derek likes dirty talk, since he’s enjoyed being on the receiving end often enough._

_Derek growls, partly in response to the challenge and partly in frustration. He mustn’t let this happen, not yet. Taking a step back, he kneels down between Stiles’s eagerly spreading thighs and opens his pants. It’s getting harder and harder to tell where the line is that he shouldn’t cross. As he takes out Stiles’s cock, eliciting a long, desperate moan when he gives it a slow stroke, he realizes that he’s way, way past the point where inclination turns to intention and moved seamlessly on to action._

_“I wanna suck you off,” Stiles repeats. “You said we can do more than hands today. For Chrissake, Derek, there’s only so much restraint a teenager can take. We’re alone. No one will ever know. All my friends think we’re doing it anyway. Because let me tell you: virtuous is not the impression they have of you.”_

_Stiles may never understand that for Derek it doesn’t matter who else knows. All that matters is that he knows because he’s the one who’ll have to live with it. It’s never about anybody else or their judgments. “I’ll suck you off,” he says firmly. “At least I have some experience.”_

_Stiles, who’s fallen back onto his back, jolts up and leans onto his elbows to look at him. “What experience? I thought you said you’ve never been with a guy before.”_

_“But I’ve had blowjobs before. Have you?”_

_“Uhm… no.”_

_“So, my experience trumps yours. Are you arguing with me here? Seriously?”_

_“Oh!_ No! _No, not at all. I am most certainly not arguing or stopping you in any way from giving me a blowjob. No argument from me. At all. Consider me completely and utterly argument-free.”_

_Derek smiles a little indulgently and pushes him back onto the bed. Then he licks a long swath from the base to the tip of his cock, making Stiles’s hips buck up a bit and drawing out a whimpered, “Oh God.”_

_There are a myriad of little details he’s discovered about Stiles that he loves, like all the sounds he makes when he’s aroused, anticipatory and desperate when Derek doesn’t move fast enough for his liking, and lazily content after he’s come. He’s loud, no surprise there, but afterwards he’s always uncharacteristically soft and languid – and quiet. And there are the moles sprinkled all over his body that Derek likes to trace and connect into different patterns with his tongue. And then there’s the shape of his cock. It’s beautiful – although Derek really only has in-depth knowledge of his own cock for comparison. He’s never before given it much thought, but has quickly developed an appreciation for it. He remembers what it was like at that age to have almost no control and revels in making it swell and twitch at the lightest touch. The smell seems to be particularly designed to drive him wild, even before it’s covered in come. And apparently, it grows just that little bit more when you put your mouth around it._

_Derek’s been as keen as Stiles to do this. His reluctance isn’t so much about the law, or the law enforcer in this case, but about making sure that Stiles is ready, physically – because he only left the hospital three weeks ago – but also emotionally – because Derek remembers how as a teenager he made some of the worst decisions of his life._

_He can feel Stiles’s hands in his hair and he doesn’t mind. It’s not like Stiles is strong enough to push him down too hard or force him in any way. It’s just encouragement and a bit of guidance, as if the groans and whimpers and babblings of, “More. Yes. Oh, God, yes, just like that,” aren’t enough indication of what Stiles wants him to do. It’s very erotic, the control he has, the teasing he can inflict, the obvious passion he engenders. They all combine to guide his hand naturally to his own eager cock because he can’t wait until Stiles is ready to do it for him. This is so… Stiles is tapping his head urgently now, unable to form coherent words any longer but obviously warning him that he’s about to come. Derek wouldn’t miss this for the world. He’s a werewolf, he’s had worse things in his mouth than the come that’s flooding it now. Stiles is almost sobbing out his orgasm, alternating between calling his name and that of various deities and Derek’s senses are overwhelmed with taste and smell and sound, so that just a few more strokes have him spilling over his own hand._

_He crawls up the bed and pulls Stiles up with him until his legs are no longer dangling over the edge. Stiles turns into him immediately, burying his face in the crook of his neck._

_“I want to do that to you. I don’t want to wait any longer. I need you to get over this thing you have about hurting me or pushing me. Please. I love you. I need more. I know what I want. I’m ready. Why won’t you believe me?”_

_Derek runs his hand through Stiles’s hair. He doesn’t quite know how to react to Stiles’s declaration, isn’t sure if Stiles even knows he said it, so he files it away under the hundreds of reasons why the brat is making him feel warm and whole, and responds to the rest of it. “I do believe you. I’ll sort it out.”_

_“When?”_

_“Tomorrow.”_

_There’s a groan of frustrated impatience, followed by a surprisingly gentle and lingering kiss. And Derek knows it’s time to stop worrying, despite his conviction that it’s too good to last, and let this thing that they have just run. He seems to be powerless to do much else anyway._

The sheriff appears supremely uncomfortable – no wonder when they’re talking about his son’s sex life, however obliquely. But he also seems resigned. Derek can relate to that, Stiles is an unstoppable force in many ways or they wouldn’t be having this conversation.

“I see. I will have to speak to him, of course, but I know my son. When something’s important to him, or someone, he does what he wants anyway. I don’t want him to simply start lying to me again. But you do realize that he won’t be eighteen for a few more months and I can’t just give you or rather him permission, don’t you? As you pointed out, I am in law enforcement.”

Derek holds the sheriff’s eyes steadily. “Choosing not to investigate is not the same as condoning an offence that you know about.”

Stilinski picks up his fork and starts eating again. “A blind eye?”

Derek shrugs. “Discretion.”

“That would have been a lot easier if you simply hadn’t said anything.”

“That may be true, but I didn’t want… developments turn me into a liar.”

Stilinski smiles for the first time. “I appreciate that. So far you’ve shown yourself to have his best interest at heart. After all, you fixed his leg when he was refusing to do it himself. And I assume that him being more like his old self nowadays has a lot to do with you as well. He seems… happy. I also assume this new situation falls under ‘no harm’?”

“Definitely.”

“I’ll hold you to that, son.”

“I won’t let you down, sir.”

Derek’s life is made up of too many bad decisions, most of them taken without much thinking. After his last disastrous relationship, he promised himself that next time he falls in love, everything would be perfect. He would choose the right person, wait for the right circumstances and only commit to it if he was sure that it would work out. Now he finds himself in love with a teenager, who half the time talks at high speed about ridiculous stuff Derek’s never heard of and isn’t sure he wants to, but can’t help be interested in anyway. Who revels in teasing Derek about anything and everything in his own unique style, like telling him to stop the eyebrow workout already when they disagree on something. Who at the same time looks at Derek as if he’s the most precious thing in the world to him and can profess his feelings without getting himself all tied up in knots like Derek does. And Derek thinks that contrary to all appearances, by sheer coincidence and dumb luck maybe this time he got it just right.

 

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

 

 

**Epilogue**

The clouds obscure the sliver of the moon for a few moments before passing again to leave the barest of light. In some ways, he’d feel better if the moon was full and he could draw on all of its power. But if he could, then so could they, so it’s better this way. He wouldn’t want the others to be exposed to a hostile alpha at his full power.

This is the first time in the three months they’ve been together – or maybe ever – that he’s lied to Stiles. He’s fully aware that Stiles would consider his assurance that he’s ‘just out in the woods with Scott and Isaac’ an outright lie rather than a simple omission of where they would be doing this and what exactly it would entail. But he doesn’t want Stiles to worry or, worse, try and stop him. He’ll tell him when it’s all over because it didn’t take him long to learn how refreshing honesty is. He understands now what Stiles meant about being ‘seen’ by another person. This is the first time that he doesn’t need to hide anything. Stiles already knew him long before either of them even started to get interested, knew who and what he is – and wants him anyway. Derek feels more at ease with himself than he has for a long time, possibly since the fire.

He knows and, to a certain extent, appreciates why Stiles doesn’t want him to do this. He thinks Derek will lose all reason if he ever comes across Hawkins and his pack again and will throw himself into a fight that will leave him hurt, or worse. But Derek’s not that stupid. He knows he cannot fight an alpha and three betas alone, which is the exact reason he brought reinforcements.

He can’t see or hear Scott, but Isaac’s slightly jittery nervousness he can practically smell from here. This situation is new for both teenagers. Ordinarily, they let trouble come to them, wait for the danger to sneak up on them before they fight back, all in line with Scott’s live and let live philosophy. The Nemeton ensures that they have their hands full either way. But not this time – this time they’re taking the fight to the enemy.

When Derek told Scott that he knew where Hawkins and his pack were hiding out, they were both in agreement for once. Or maybe Scott just felt he had something to prove. Sometimes it feels like Scott thinks they’re in a competition, in this case over Stiles. Ever since Stiles gave him a dressing down at the hospital, Scott’s been making a real effort to make amends. Mostly, their friendship has been restored, but when it comes to Derek, he’s still adversarial. When they’re all together he spends a lot of time insinuating that he’s closer to Stiles than Derek ever will be by referring to their years of friendship with boring predictability. Knowing how important Scott is to Stiles, Derek tries not to respond. He’s not the one who’s feeling threatened.

Strangely enough Scott seems to be coping with their relationship better now than when they were friends. His newest quest is to show that he’s the better werewolf. He actually has pack meetings now which he expects everyone to attend. Naturally, Derek takes great pleasure in distracting Stiles enough to make him forget that there’s a meeting at all and when he gets the inevitable phone call, he usually decides that what Derek’s doing to him right now is far too important to even answer. Derek knows it’s petty, but it’s fun on so many levels that he can’t resist.

He still spends his days renovating the Hale house, but he always stops working in the afternoon now. It seems a little disconcerting to him that at his age high school hours are suddenly dictating his life again. Stiles helps him most weekends, but more often than not they get distracted, so very little gets done. Derek doesn’t mind. He’s worked out that he never started this project for himself or even for Cora in the first place, but is simply creating a home for his mate. Apparently his wolf instincts worked that one out long before his brain caught up. But it’ll be a while before Stiles is ready to settle down in the house. He’s way too smart to stay in Beacon Hills after graduation. They’ve been looking at colleges that cater for Stiles’s interests, Derek’s need for open spaces and aren’t too far away from home, so Stiles can keep an eye on his dad.

When it’s nearly time, Derek pushes Stiles from his permanent spot in his mind and straightens up slowly from his crouching position. All his senses are heightened and the rage he felt when he found Stiles injured, which has been simmering ever since, now comes to the fore with a vengeance. He can finally let loose. Very slowly, with grim satisfaction, he shifts into his wolf form. He hasn’t been in a fight in what feels like a long time and this one he’s been itching to start for months.

Over to his right, Isaac has shifted as well, now grimly confident and ready to go. He’s a good kid really, one Derek’s proud of when he allows himself to think about his betas. He’s proud of all of them but only Isaac bears thinking about.

Then he sheds all other thoughts and starts running. His mind is blank now except for the instincts his wolf supplies. Everything comes into much sharper focus, making him one with his environment. He crashes through trees and into the small clearing where the other pack is settling down for the night. His whole body is focused on the fight, on revenge. Scott insisted that they would only give them the werewolf equivalent of a back alley beating. Derek agreed to that mainly because he knows that Stiles would be upset if they did more than that and nowadays Stiles no longer meekly swallows his grievances and forgets about them. Derek wouldn’t want to have to deal with him when he feels justly aggrieved.

But now that he’s here, the wolf in him wants to maim and kill. Hawkins and his pack drew first blood. He could live with a personal attack but not one on his mate. Not on _Stiles_. He may have let it go – especially with Stiles’s very convincing methods of persuasion – had they not decided to come back to Beacon Hills. They’re camped out in the farthest corner of the preserve, but still, his territory, his mate, his _everything_.

One of the betas, a smallish man with a wild beard, who’s at least twenty years older than Derek, is the first to see him and attack. Derek throws him off easily, straight into Isaac who’s now caught up with him. At the same time, Scott enters the clearing from the other direction, fully wolfed out with his eyes glowing bright red. The other two betas, deciding that he’s the bigger threat, attack him together.

Hawkins has been a little slower than the rest of the pack, which is probably down to his general arrogant complacency. Some werewolves who’ve been in an established pack for a long time don’t feel the need for alertness, especially once they’ve reached the top of the pack order. It happens only rarely and usually gets either them or their pack killed, or both. He wolves out almost lazily and smirks at Derek, flashing his eyes.

“Where’s your little playmate? You should have brought him. We could all have some more fun with him.”

Derek snarls in rage and disgust and loses it completely. He can feel his control ripping away and launches himself at the other werewolf. Hawkins is about the same height, but has at least twenty pounds on him, which should be an advantage even without his alpha powers. But Derek is more agile and a lot faster. He manages to slash Hawkins from his shoulder to his chest before his arm is clawed in a vicious strike that diverts him past the other werewolf, stumbling a little to regain his feet.

Hawkins gives a short howl of pain and anger and whirls to attack him, but Derek has already changed direction and throws himself against Hawkins’ hips, making him topple over. Bringing his superior speed into play, Derek’s upright much faster and drops onto the alpha’s waist. With neither one of them going anywhere, their claws try to wreak as much damage as possible on each other. Ordinarily Derek would recognize that fighting an alpha at close quarters can’t end well for him, but he’s too full of rage to care. He ignores the increasing amount of wounds inflicted on his torso and relishes the blood pouring from Hawkins’s chest from his own attacks. He wants to rip the guy’s throat out and bring it home to Stiles as an offering.

In the end it’s Scott who wards off disaster, albeit inadvertently. He throws off the smaller one of the betas he’s fighting so forcefully that he crashes into Derek and dislodges him from Hawkins just as the alpha is preparing to spear his claws under Derek’s ribcage.

Derek lands on his back and for a moment struggles to push the beta off him. When he finally succeeds, he gives him a slash across the back for good measure, then flips legs over head onto his feet. He takes just one moment to assess the situation. Isaac’s holding his own nicely. The bearded werewolf is being held at bay which is exactly what he’s meant to do. The remaining beta Scott’s fighting is huge, much larger than the teen, but Scott seems to have no difficulty. The beta is bleeding from several wounds.

“Swap,” Scott growls at Derek, which only makes sense, since he’s the alpha and has a better chance to defeat another alpha. Now that they’ve started this fight, they have to win, otherwise Beacon Hills will be overrun with other packs sensing weakness.

But Derek is too wrapped up in his rage and his thirst for revenge. Nobody touches Stiles without consequences, _nobody_ , not ever! He will rather die than let that happen. Hawkins runs another attack at him, managing to bring him down. But Derek, who has thrown himself against his opponent at the last moment, has caused both of them to twist with his momentum, so that Hawkins lands half underneath him. One of his arms is trapped under his own body and Derek manages to push the other away with both his hands before it can reach his throat, but he knows he won’t be able to hold the alpha off for long. For just a moment, he has a clear field of attack and he bites down, digging his fangs in as deep as he can, coming away with a large mouthful of blood and muscle and tissue.

“Derek, no!” Scott shouts desperately and then everything goes eerily quiet. The fighting ceases abruptly while the members of both packs are staring at Derek and Hawkins, who’s gone limp under him. From his neck, arterial blood sprays Derek like a vile shower.

And then, for the second time in his life, Derek can feel power surge through him, triumphantly invading every cell of his body. When he looks back at the others, he knows his eyes are glowing red.

 

Fin. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and especially for the generous comments and kudos. :-)


End file.
